


i'll stick to you forever cause this scar, i think, is permanent

by emeraldcitydowntowngirl



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Band, Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Music Store, Sexual Content, Slow Burn, Tattoos, also i love wendys, but i know some ppl don't like when all of the ships arent tagged so, handjobs, it was truly a matter of time, mentions of cutting, thats why i mention wendys so often, tyler works at wendys, tyler's cryptic but ya know, very background ryden, when is he not in my fics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-09-27 10:23:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 49,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10010060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emeraldcitydowntowngirl/pseuds/emeraldcitydowntowngirl
Summary: Josh couldn't really say that things at Penny Tattoo Parlor were calm. Because... well, Pete and Patrick were always denying their totally real and totally obvious relationship, the two teenagers from the music store next door, Brendon and Hayley, were always annoying them, and Travie was always leaving his niece in there to hang out as he painted outside. But things were a lot more normal before Tyler Joseph walked in one day at closing time, with a Donnie Darko looking kind of hoodie and frazzled eyes, asking for a single line around his wrist.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> :0) when u have to memorize the to be or not to be speech from hamlet but like why do that when u can write? lol!  
> to be or not to be... that is the question. whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or take arms against the (?) sea of troubles and, by opposing, end them. to die, to sleep - no more. and by a sleep to say we end the heartache and thousand natural shocks flesh is heir to. tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. to die, to sleep, to sleep perchance to dream....... and that's all i got so far
> 
> the title is from grimes's "pin" aka the,, best

Working at the Penny Tattoo Parlor…

(The parlor across from the Hot Topic, where kids would come in constantly with their Green Day lyric ideas and Pete would have to send them out the door, because, ‘ _dude, that’s awesome, but you’re also 14 and I legally can’t let you tattoo the cover-art from Blink-182’s self-titled on your forehead, come back in 4 years and I’ll do it for you myself_”

The parlor next to the music store, ‘Urie Electric’, where people tattoo music notes on their skin the most after Hayley William plays the piano in there, almost like her voice moved them to do it, and the youngest Urie of 'Urie Electric' constantly berates the owner of the parlor, a short dude with the most talented hands in the world, Patrick Stump, about how ‘ _dude, how do you- how does- how do you not know how to read sheet music?!_ ’

The parlor underneath Travie’s apartment, where the smell of paint is constantly imbedded in his nose)

… is about the coolest, weirdest, awesomest thing (that’s a word, right?) that has ever happened in Josh’s life.

His day always starts with a coffee from McDonalds, something iced and sweet. He’s practically on a first name basis with the people there. For a dollar and change for a medium caramel drink, he can’t really see why people would spend 5 dollars somewhere pretentious and stupid, but he guesses that’s what makes him such a disgrace to Pete- he winces every time Josh walks in, as he drinks out of his 4 buck and change small coffee from ‘Cobra Café’- lame.

“You have to support small businesses.  _We’re_ a small business.” Pete says to him, crossing his arms as Josh slurps at his drink, the small hints of coffee stuck between the ice protesting back.

“Don’t mind him.” Patrick says to Josh, emerging out of his workspace, and he takes a sip out of Pete’s coffee when he walks over. There are two stools where Pete is, Pete’s in one, and the other one is normally always empty, since Pete’s the only one who works at the front desk, but Patrick takes a seat, and props his feet up on Pete’s lap as he makes a face of disgust at the taste of the coffee. He swallows with a grimace, Pete’s staring at the feet in his lap, and Josh continues to drink from his straw.

“Pete’s the one who blows hundreds of bucks on Amazon. So lazy, he won’t even walk around the town-“

Pete’s coffee cup gets snatched out of Patrick’s hands, and he shifts a little so that Patrick’s not as comfortable- Patrick’s overstayed his welcome. “Whatever. How am I supposed to find a sex-swing in town?”

Patrick’s skin immediately flushes red, and he stays very still. Like, if he doesn’t move, he could disappear, and Josh wouldn’t question him. “Well…” He eventually says, after a couple of seconds of pure, unadulterated silence, “I’m sure you could find a sex shop somewhere.” “Oh, could I?” “Yeah, actually, if you put your mind to it, and-“

Josh just watches on, amused as they continue to bicker. They’re not dating, they say. They’re not dating, but Pete spends hundreds of bucks on Amazon for sex toys for the both of them. “We’re just close friends” they say, yet Josh finds notes and smiley faces scattered around the shop. They think it’s cute, sneaking around Josh, as if Josh’s oblivious. Whatever makes them feel young… or whatever.

After a daily dose of ‘Peterick’ (as Hayley Williams and Brendon Urie over at ‘Urie Electric’ next door call them, with grins on their faces), Josh settles into the backroom, they have 2 couches in there, and a coffee table, and he waits for his first appointment, or, depending on the day and if he’s free, a walk-in.

He has Travie as his first appointment- he knows Travie well, he’s always out on the balcony above the shop painting, and he’s outside with his 3 year old niece coloring on the sidewalks in chalk sticks, and he’s in Josh’s chair, finishing his other tattoo sleeve. He doesn’t really know what Travie _does_ , besides art and watch his niece. Pete and Patrick and Josh (and Joe and Andy, who also work there), they’re always smelling paint. They’re always seeing bright yellow suns with blackish-grayish sunglasses when they get into their cars and go home.

You’d think that time goes by slowly when you’re sitting around, waiting. Josh hates waiting. But, Josh also loves drawing and designing, and going back into his notes, drawing out requests from people who make appointments, he loves creating art, loves going to Patrick with something new, and seeing the way that Patrick’s eyes gleam, watching with fearful eyes as Pete scrambles out of his seat too fast, eager to look, and ends up falling on his face. It’s all part of the charm. So… Josh waits, which he hates, and he draws, which he loves.

There’s a knock on the wall, and when he looks up, Pete looks at him through his eyeliner eyes. “Trav’s here.”

He pushes himself off of his knees, and he follows Pete into the hallway. Travie’s sitting around in one of the chairs, and his niece, Izzy, is on the floor, playing with Penny, Patrick’s dog.

Yes, Patrick Stump, one of the best tattoo artists ever Josh has ever met, worked with, etc., named his tattoo parlor after his dog. He was half-drunk, super happy, in love with the world… and his dog.

Josh doesn’t really blame him- Penny’s the best. She’s just about the cutest dog ever, and she’s so well-behaved. Josh leans down, scratches behind her ear a little, and he holds his palm out, for Izzy to give him a high-five.

“I still can’t, like, believe that that place is gone, y’know?” Pete says, going back into a conversation with Travie and Patrick that Josh wasn’t part of. But he can piece two and two together- a little while ago, a pizza place close by shut down. In its place- a Wendy’s. It had only opened last week, but people were still checking it out, as if it weren’t a franchise.

“Small businesses, man. It’s fucked up how easily they can be put out of business.” Pete says, glaring a little at Josh. Josh doesn’t take the bait, he just turns to Travie and gives him a look that says ‘let’s go before Pete rants for 12 years’

“That place sucked, remember?” Patrick says to Pete, and Pete throws his hands up in the air. “Pizza’s hard to make! Give the guy some credit for trying!”

Travie nods at Josh. “Yeah, I’m ready. Patrick, you good with Izzy?” Travie asks, and Patrick nods. “The question is probably ‘do you trust Pete with her’, since I have someone coming in soon. But yeah.”

Travie looks over to Pete, looks down at Izzy, looks back over to Pete, and his shoulders slump. “Please don’t kill my niece.”

“I’m not gonna! Just- shoo! Josh, get him out of here!”

Josh’s workspace, where he does most of the tattooing, is the second door on the right, and it’s a room Travie painted himself. It’s something that resembles starry night, it’s navy blues and yellows and whites, but there are patches of orange and pink where Travie painted in flowers. “He’s been like this all day. No- all _week_.” Josh says, sighing as Travie gets situated in the chair. He gets out razors to shave where he’s going to work, all of the ink and his machine and the sterilizing stuff are ready at hand. Travie just laughs, shaking his head, “Yeah, that’s Pete. Have they-“

“No. It’s so _annoying_. He was talking about, like, buying sex toys, and Patrick just had, like, the most ridiculous expression on his face.”

Josh hears the bell on the door ring, and he hears as Pete audibly groans. “Guys, get out. No one’s gonna tattoo you until you’re 18, please, you _know_ this, and-“

The unmistakable ring of Hayley William’s voice echoes around the shop- “We weren’t coming in to bother you about that, although… _y’know_. You could always chose to be _cool_ and _let it slide._ But we just saw Penny through the window and we’re on our break. Want a Wendy’s fry?” “WENDY’S?!”

Josh and Travie share a glance, before they laugh at the interaction. “I think I got a fake I.D _just_ to get tattoos. I got my first one at… 16?” Josh says, and Travie gives him a smug look, although this is playful. “14. But I had to get it covered… it was pretty fuckin’ stupid.”

“Wait, the spray can one?”

Travie sighs deeply, running his hands over his face. “Yup. So fuckin’ stupid.”

Travie was the only kid who did graffiti in the area where he grew up. Pair that together with his tattoo, and the police had their first suspect.

“Yeah, there’s probably a reason the age is 18…” Josh trails off, just trying to imagine a 14 year old Travie getting a tattoo. “Anyways- let’s get started, yeah?”

Once he shaves where he’s gonna work on, he gets started- the buzzing from the machine, as cheesey as it sounds, lulls him into a trance, where the only thing on his mind is _art._ It’s the only time where his mind is truly clear, and he’s most focused. His tongue barely peeks out of his mouth, as he traces over lines, fills in brilliant colors on Travie’s dark skin, and wipes away at little droplets of blood when he sees them. And usually people hate how quiet Josh is, especially because Patrick chats up a storm as he does his work, but it’s not like he can help it. He’s a talkative person… just not while he’s working.

He’s been working for Patrick for 2 years, and it’s about the best thing that’s ever happened to him- even though his parents still don’t believe it’s a real profession. But Josh would rather come in during Patrick’s weird hours and make half of what he would be making if he went with his initial plan- accounting. _Much_ rather deal with Pete being antsy all of the time, deal with Patrick’s weird white funk music playing over the system, deal with Andy’s grimaces when Josh pulls a chicken parm sandwich out of the fridge in the back, deal with Joe’s… well, actually, Joe’s pretty cool. But you get the picture.

Travie watches out a couple of episodes on the TV in the room by the time that Josh finishes with next section on the sleeve- he dresses up the bruises and wraps his arm, and he takes a deep breath. “Good?”

“Great. I’m so sore. But great.” Travie says, unconsciously mimicking Josh’s deep breath. “Can’t wait to not paint for a week.”

Josh’s gloves snap off, and he tosses them in the trash. He walks over to the sink as Travie gets up, and he washes his hands with the small business soap that Pete bought. Yeah.

“I think you’ll survive.” Josh says, grinning over to him, and they walk out back to the main ‘lobby’- this takes about 7 steps, since the parlor is super small. From here, Josh can hear Patrick’s voice over the buzz of the machine, “ _Oh my goodness, I know!_ ”.

Pete’s sitting at the counter with his textbook, he’s actually still studying at college unlike everyone else, and he gives Travie a small wave. “You good?”

“After two advils, sure.”

He pays, Pete gives him a little pamphlet on how to properly take care of the tattoo even though Travie’s pretty much a pro at it, and he leaves holding hands with Izzy, who was otherwise sitting on the stool next to Pete, playing with Pete’s phone. He grimaces at his phone, and wipes it on his pants. “Little kid fingers… so sticky.”

Not to say that Travie comes in everyday, but this is what a regular day at Penny looks like- Josh gives someone a tattoo, Pete complains about everything, Patrick’s laugh rings through the shop. When Patrick’s out, and Joe comes in, he brings in chicken sandwiches (and something for Andy too), and everyone just… everything is just _normal_ . Normal enough. Hayley and Brendon hang out with Penny when they’re avoiding work, and they do homework on the floors when Izzy’s over, or sometimes the teenagers throw a concert at the shop (without the permission of Brendon’s parents, obviously), but that's it. It's not as boring as an office job, it’s not boring at all, but nothing weird happens. Sometimes someone comes in with a funny tattoo idea, and sometimes Pete has to usher drunk people out of the shop because ‘ _Nooooo, you don’t want a dick on your wrist_ ’, and ‘ _Please, sir, don’t puke on-- okay, you puked on the floor._ ’, but, and Josh can’t stress this enough, things are just normal. A cutesy tattoo parlor full of semi-regular people.

Anyways- the day goes on. Brendon hands Pete a slip that says his parents consent to him getting a tattoo, it’s so obviously fake that he’s definitely playing some sort of prank on Pete, and Pete practically tears his hair out as he screams “ARE YOU SERIOUS, THE HANDWRITING ON YOUR SIGNATURE IS THE EXACT SAME AS YOUR QUOTE UNQUOTE MOM’S, DON’T YOU HAVE SOME STUPID HOMEWORK TO DO OR SOMETHING?”. Patrick shuts the light off in his room, and he announces in a loud voice that he’s going out with his siblings but that he’ll be home around 10:30, and Pete quickly grabs a Post-It note to make a note. Joe skate-boards out of the shop and down the block when he leaves, and Josh and Pete were left to close shop.

Josh sweeps the floors as Pete wipes down the counter. The clock on the wall reads ‘8:55’, and the both of them are humming along to the music on mainstream radio. Josh’s already planning out his night- go home, make some dinner, practice on his Rock Band drum set, maybe watch an episode of Bojack, and then sleep. Nowhere in this plan is a walk-in walking in.

And yet, a walk-in walks in. If the name didn’t give it away.

He’s wearing this weird skeleton type of hoodie, that covers his head and his eyes. And Josh would get it, wouldn’t think much of it, if the aura that the guy gave off wasn’t so… unsettling. Just the way he walked in, like he was being chased, the way that’s so visibly shaking. Pete takes a step back, and he looks at the guy with wide eyes, stunned at the entrance.

“Are you still open? I just want- I just want a line around my wrist.” He asks,  _says_ , and his voice shakes harder than his body. He looks like he’s shivering, even though it’s relatively warm outside. His hands are stuffed in his pockets, and he rocks on his heels. His hoodie reminds Josh of the onesie that Donnie Darko wore- and the last thing Josh wants to think about is Donnie Darko's dead and unblinking eyes. 

Pete looks over to Josh for a moment, Josh is just as stunned as him, and he says, “I mean-- dude, are you okay? We don’t give tattoos if you’re under the influence, but I can call a cab, or-”

“I’m not drunk, do I look drunk?!” The guy asks, almost in hysterics, and Pete shakes his head quickly, “No, I just, I-- we’re closing in 2 minutes, if you just come in tomorrow I’m sure we could do something, but we’re _literally_ closing in 2 minutes, and-”

“Wait.” Josh says, and he runs a hand over his face. He can do a line. There’s not much for him to do at home anyways, and he kinda doesn’t want to piss this guy off. And by _‘kinda’_ , he means _‘really’_.

Pete looks at him like he’s crazy, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Just a line?”

“Just a line.” The guy says, turning to look at him, and he says, breathlessly, “Oh, God, thank you so much, you have no idea, okay, okay, should I-” He points to where Josh is- the rooms.

“Yeah, just… follow me, I guess.” Josh says, and the guy paces over to where Josh is, his hands still stuffed in his pockets. Josh points to his room, and Pete gives Josh another look, he’s shaking his head, and he mouths, ‘ _You close shop, I’m going home. Good luck._ ’

 _Yeah_ , Josh decides, as the guy situates himself in Josh’s chair, as he pulls off his hoodie, runs his shaking hands through his fluffy hair, _I’m gonna need it_.


	2. Chapter 2

Tyler wasn’t an impulsive person.  In fact, he was the opposite of an impulsive person- he pretty much followed a rigid schedule:

  1. Wake up at 6 (He remembers mornings when his parents would throw cold water on him if he didn’t get up, so it was instinctual)
  2. Go to work (It was now at Wendy’s, it used to be at Taco Bell)
  3. Continue to be the physical embodiment of failure in his parent’s eyes (because ‘Zack did this’, and ‘Zack did that’, and ‘Zack got into college with a full scholarship’, and ‘Zack is thinking about proposing to his girlfriend’, and the only real thing that Tyler has under his belt is not slitting his throat. Which isn’t something he can casually bring up to his relatives at Thanksgiving. “ _Yeah, sure, Zack is doing all of that and being a productive person in society, but I haven’t killed myself yet… so, where’s my fucking trophy_?”
  4. Hang around the music store and look at instruments there was no way in fucking hell he was going to be able to afford (He had been eyeing the shiny bass in the corner of the store- he had already splurged 500 bucks on a keyboard, and it would take the next couple of months to actually save up for the bass- but he was. There was a piggy bank in his room with $57.68 stuffed in it's ceramic guts.
  5. Read at the library, in the cool bean bag chairs in the adult section. Tyler's not why they put bean bag chairs in the adult section, but he's not complaining.
  6. Walk by the tattoo shop, pause in front of the door, look at the drawings on the pavement, and walk away.
  7. Drive home in his silent car.
  8. Be home.
  9. Practice the piano, write some melodies, dream about being a band, something cool and nothing too big, he didn’t want to sell out arenas but he wanted to sell out the halls, wanted to be able to see everyone.
  10. And repeat.



_G_ _etting a tattoo_ was never on there. Because how could he ever get a _real_ job? Granted he went back to college, and actually got a degree in something stupid, and just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

He wasn’t even sure what he would get if he had gotten one- nothing had ever meant that much to him, that much to get it etched onto his skin anyways. He’s not sure if the Seth Rogen tattoo that one of the guys he works with means anything, but who knows- maybe Seth Rogen saved that guy’s life. Seth Rogen never saved Tyler’s life.

Tyler's almost certain he can't tattoo what constantly saves his life- his coward-like qualities, the fact that he _just can’t do it_ , whether it’s a God he doesn’t know exists telling him it’s not his time, the fact that Tyler doesn’t cut deep enough lines.

Who knows. The point- the point that takes absolutely forever to get to- is that Tyler never planned on stepping foot into Penny’s.

Tattoos were the roses on shoulders, the quotes from famous books. Tattoos were sleeves, and butterflies, and Seth Rogen’s fucking face. Tattoos weren’t a line around his wrist.

The room that he’s sitting in is so cold. He shivers, shivers even more than he already was when he all but ran into the parlor, and the entire room feels the way that opening a freezer does. You just want to close the goddamn freezer.

The guy with the pink hair who said he was gonna do his tattoo looks nervous, which makes him nervous, which makes the guy look even more nervous. He hugs himself a little, his hoodie does nothing to make him feel more at home, because he’s sitting in this chair, about to get a fucking tattoo, and he’s never felt more out of his comfort zone in his life.

“Are you cold?” The guy asks, and he looks around the room for a second, before he plugs back in a space heater. “Just--- let me know if you’re too hot.”

“Okay.” Tyler says, shifting in the chair in a little. This guy is cute in an unconventional way, which is the best way. Tyler’s not sure if he’s fond of chiseled jaws, and icy blue eyes, but he knows he’s fond of these chocolate browns and the dry pink hair. “I’m sorry if you had to go home.” He says, and a flare of panic flairs in his chest. “Actually, I think I should just go, I think-“

“I don’t mind.” Pink Hair shrugs his shoulders, and he takes out a razor, and yeah, shit, Tyler has to get out of there.

“Noooo, you don’t understand, I gotta- go. This was a mistake? You want to go home, right?” Tyler says, and he rolls out of his seat, puts the hood of the hoodie back over his fluffy hair. “But thanks! Really! I just gotta-“

“Are you nervous?” Pink Hair asks, his eyebrows furrow, and he drops the razor back on the table. “I mean, there was a reason you came here, right? You can leave if you want but if you’re nervous, I can… try to talk you through it?”

“I feel like… like I came here for a reason.” Tyler says, from his spot by the door. They’re on opposite sides of the room, staring at each other like the other is the predator and they’re the prey. Tyler doesn’t want this guy with the kind eyes and the scary tattoo machine and the razor to ruin his life and chances of him ever getting a _real_ job. Josh doesn’t want this guy with the Donnie Darko hoodie to like… shoot him.

“I feel like I came here for a reason, but I can’t remember what it was, and I don’t like razors, and I don’t like pain, and I don’t think I belong here. I’ve never gotten a tattoo. I don’t know your name, and-“

“I’m Josh.” Pink Hair says, and Tyler brings his shaking hands to his face. He rubs at his tired eyes, his hands smell like Wendy’s fries, and he says, “Yeah, okay, but everything else is wrong.”

He brings his hands down. “And I’m Tyler.”

There’s no guidebook, _What To Do When A Costumer Runs In At Closing Time, Demands A Tattoo, And Then Doesn’t Want That Tattoo, But You Know That They Do, But You Don’t Want To Set Them Off, Because They Kind Of Remind You Of Tate from American Horror Story, And Tate Was Not A Good Character,_ but Josh works with what he’s got- which is barely anything.

“If you think about it, if the regulation to get a tattoo was that you had to already have a tattoo, then no one would have tattoos.”

Tyler doesn’t want to cry. But he feels tears springing to his eyes. “I want one, but I don’t want that _thing_ near me. It’s the whole reason I fucking want this in the first place.”

A line around his wrist and a fear of razors suddenly connect in Josh’s mind, like two puzzle pieces.

“Look,” Josh says, again, “I’m not forcing you to do anything, okay? But I promise, it’ll take me 5 seconds, you don’t even have to look, and then you’ll get your tattoo, and it’ll feel like… well, it feels like shit. Especially right-“ He holds up his hand, runs his finger over his inner wrist, “-here. But it’ll be over quickly. And then you just have to take care of it.”

Tyler shakes his head, and he wipes at his eyes and his unshed tears. “I work at Wendy’s, and I flip burgers. Can I still get it?”

Well, probably not.

“Well, probably not.” Josh says, “But if you can find a way to take care of it properly and you don’t get burger grease all over it…”

This is already too much talking for Josh- he mostly knows exactly what people want, he gives them the remote, he works, they’re happy, they go home. But for some reason, he doesn’t mind this.

“Okay.” Tyler says, after a moment. He climbs back into the chair, and his hood stays on. “I trust you. I think.”

“I have a light-hand.” Josh says, once Tyler’s definitely seated. “You want to watch something? I also have Spotify Premium. Anything you want.”

“Will you be able to hear me over the machine?” Tyler asks, and Josh pauses. “Um, yeah.”

“So, can we do that instead?”

The room is warm when Josh smiles at him. It reminds Tyler of a bakery, and Tyler thinks he would like to work in a bakery. It must be so nice, working somewhere that always smells like cookies and cake. Better than fucking Wendy’s- smelling like burgers and fries. The only good thing about working there is the free Frosty’s. And seeing his co-worker’s Seth Rogen tattoo.

“Yeah sure. We can do that. Alright, I’m gonna just shave this part, okay?”

He’s wearing latex gloves, and he runs a rubberish finger over Tyler’s outer wrist. Tyler nods, and his eyes close. “Alright. What’s your favorite band?”

Rubber fingers leave his wrist, he hears the sound of a faucet running, footsteps approach, and he feels the cool swipe of an alcohol wipe. The smell reminds him of cleaning cuts and hospitals, and before Tyler can open his mouth to tell him no, because  _no,_ he feels the unmistakable scratch of the razor against his skin. His breath hitches, and Josh replies, his voice smooth like peanut butter, or like hazelnut spread, “Modest Mouse. You?”

It’s not much- there’s not much hair to shave when you’re tattooing a single, thin line, but it’s enough for Tyler to screw his eyes shut. Images fill his mind, and that does nothing to help, so he opens his eyes and he stares, dead-eyed at the flowers on Josh’s wall. Josh’s hand on his wrist, cold, and rubberish, shave over the bone, and barely scratch at his inner wrist. He works quickly, he leans over, rinses the razor, brings it back, and Tyler stares at the pretty flowers. “Well, alright, I'll keep talking then. Modest Mouse is good. Like, really good. It’s the kind of music you could listen to when you’re driving down the highway on the way to a concert, but it’s also the kind of music you could listen to in the darkness of your room, with your headphones in, because your roommates are being assholes. Do you have roommates?”

Tyler’s answer comes out through gritted teeth. “I live with my parents.”

There’s no hair on his inner wrist, so he’s not really sure why Josh is shaving there, and he knows he’s seeing stupid scars from ages ago. He’s not sure if he wants Josh to say anything about it- he doesn’t want Josh to, but it’s also weird if he _doesn’t_ say anything.  

“Oh, that’s cool.” Josh says, in an indifferent voice, as he speedily shaves over his inner wrist- there’s no hair there, but Josh shaves everywhere where he’s working. He doesn’t say anything about white lines.

In another couple of seconds, Tyler’s wrist is bare, and the razor gets thrown in the sink. Tyler snatches his wrist away, rubs at the skin. “I like Grouplove enough. By the way.”

He drops his wrist when Josh holds his hand out, and Josh takes it back, leans it against the brace. They look at each other, and Tyler feels warm again. “Yeah, I like Grouplove too.” Josh says, before he leans over, and grabs a marker. “Alright. So, what kind of line are we thinking, here? Something dotted, or-“

“No, something solid. And thin. Kinda like…” He grabs the marker from Josh’s hands, Josh looks a little stunned at that, and Tyler draws a single line on the other wrist. “Like this? But just all around. I think. Is that stupid?”

“I don’t think any tattoo is stupid. Well… I think tattooing the name of someone you love is stupid, but that’s my opinion, and my opinion doesn’t really matter.”

“Yeah, but in your opinion, do you think a line is stupid?”

Josh shrugs. “I don’t know. Do you want it?”

Tyler nods. “Yeah, but-“

“So it’s not stupid.”

Josh takes the marker back, and he taps it against Tyler's wrist. “Show me where you want the line to start?”

And so, Tyler points right in the center of his wrist. “Here.”

And so, Josh draws a line in that spot, and all around Tyler’s wrist. When he’s done, Tyler takes a deep breath, and he nods. “Yeah, that’s—that’s perfect. I love it.”

And it’s not a lie. Tyler’s stomach keeps lurching forward, and he thinks that he’s gonna puke all over Josh, and Josh leans over and starts up the machine, and the buzzing rings around in Tyler’s head, but Tyler wants it. He squirms a little when Josh leans his hand against the brace, steadying it, and he asks, hazelnut spread voice and all, “So, what’s your favorite color?”

The stencil of a single line gets inserted into the thermal-fax machine, and Tyler replies, shaky voice and all. “I don’t know. I don’t think I have a favorite color, all colors are pretty, but- oh, God, Josh, I don’t wanna do this anymore.”

The machine shuts off. Tyler curls into himself, into the chair that reminds him too much of being at the dentist. “I feel like  a fuckin’… fuckin’… I don’t know! I feel like a stupid idiot. When did you get your first tattoo?”

“16,” Josh says, and he grins a little, “Fake I.D.”

“Were you—I mean, I don’t know. Were you nervous?” Tyler asks, although he’s sure if Josh went at 16 because he was too eager to wait 2 years to be 18 means that Josh wasn’t. But to his surprise, Josh actually nods. “Yeah, kinda. I mean, I knew I wanted one, but I didn’t know how it would feel. But… I think the pain is kinda worth it, you know? Like I would rather deal with hours of pain than not, if I meant that I could have this permanently on my skin.”

He points to his monster of a sleeve- it’s different scenery, a tree with magnificent green leaves, blue skies, a glorious sunset. “And you just want a line- I promise, it’ll be done faster than… faster than you can name all of the colors you like.”

A small smile. “What if I only know ROY-G-BIV?” 

Josh takes this as a sign to keep going- he rubs some soap and water over the clean area of his wrist, the black ink that’s already been poured into tiny cups calls out to Tyler, and suddenly he’s more ready than ever.

The machine starts up. Tyler takes his 1000000000th deep breath of the night. Josh brings the machine to Tyler’s skin, and he grins up to Tyler and says in his buttercream voice, “How about I start you off? Aqua.”

It feels like fucking shit. The first touch to his skin makes a scream tear out of his throat, and he shrieks, “JOSH!”

He sort of expects Josh to stop, but he keeps going, keeps scratching over the same line, and Tyler squirms in his seat as he pants out breaths. There’s no other way to describe how it feels, it just feels bad in the way that fingernails against a blackboard sounds bad. 

“Come on,” Josh says, in that calm and comforting voice that Tyler wishes he could get a recording of, “I’ll stop when you say stop, but let’s name colors, it’ll get your mind off of it.”

“Red.” Tyler whimpers out, “Red.”

“Orange.” Josh replies back, following the stencil, drawing over Tyler’s bare wrist. His hand is lighter than usual, but he’s getting the job done, and he’s getting the job done well. Tyler’s legs shake a little, and he sniffles before he says another color, but they get through it. “Dandelion.”

“Violet.”

“Magenta!”

“Uh… blue”

“ _Royal_ blue.”

“Okay, big shot. Amethyst.”

“Pink.”

“ _Bright_ pink.”

“Now _you’re_ showing off! Um… owwwwww… um, green.”

This continues for a while, before Josh turns his wrist on the side, let’s Tyler writhe in pain a little, the machine is straight up against his bone, and he works on his outer wrist. “We’re about halfway done, alright? How about… coral?”

“Okay. Brown.”

“Black.”

“Red-orange?”

“White.”

“Cyan!”

“Uh…. pink?”

Tyler shakes his head and he says jokingly, “You already said pink, and I’m in excruciating pain.”

“Shut up. Actually, don’t. Gray.”

“Grey with an ‘E’”

“…Gray with an ‘A’”

“Didn’t you already say that?”

“I never clarified it, though. I could have meant gray with… a ‘G’”

“That’s definitely cheating. But fine-“ Tyler begins to say, and then he bites down on his lip when Josh turns his wrist and works on the other side of his wrist, where the lines almost, almost, almost connect. “ _ohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuck._ ”

“That’s not a color.” Josh sing-songs, tracing, and tracing, and tracing, and finally- “Okay, we’re done!”

“Wait, really?!” Tyler exclaims, bursting at the seams with happy, because _he did it_ , it’s done, God bless Josh and his limited knowledge of colors. He smiles so wide, and when Josh looks up, Tyler holds up his free palm. They high-five, and Josh turns the machine off, setting it down. “Yup, really. I just have to clean you up a little, and then wrap it up, and then you’re done.”

It looks kind of gross, little spots of blood and whatnot, but it’s Tyler’s. It’s his. Till it rots with him in the grave. Josh wraps a warm towel on it, he’s not even sure where this towel even came from, and when he pulls it away, he applies some ointment that smells funky.

“Now, this is gonna prevent it from getting infections, okay?” Josh says, running his thumbs over Tyler’s tattooed wrist. The gloves are off, and his wrist feels beyond rubbed raw, but the ointment feels cool, feels nice with Josh’s warm fingers. He’d sigh in content if he still wasn’t feeling the effects of the pain.  

After a moment, a bandage gets put on and taped, and Josh stretches a little, getting rid of all of tension that set in his muscles as he worked on Tyler. He sits back down, goes over the after-care process for the tattoo, and then suddenly, they’re getting up, out of the room, and they’re walking to the lobby.

Josh reaches for a little pamphlet, and Tyler takes it with his good hand, mutters a ‘thank you.’

But this is the worst part- where Tyler has to pay, and then he leaves, and then, as he drives home 40 minutes later than he was supposed to, the regret will start to sink in because _oh my God, there’s a tattoo on my wrist and I put it there._

He reaches into his back pocket, fishes for a couple of 20 dollar bills that should be going towards paying rent (in his own house), but then Josh frowns. “Wait. Uh. This one is on me.”

Tyler looks up to Josh with wide eyes, deer caught in the headlights. “What?”

“It’s just a line. I don’t mind. Plus, it was your first one. I don’t know.” Josh says, before he clears his throat. “Tips are accepted, though.”

Tyler hands him two twenties- he wasn’t sure how much tattoos cost, but it was two twenties less than he thought he was going to be spending either way. “Go crazy.”

Josh hands one of them back. “How about you pay for my Wendy’s the next time I come in?”

And Tyler’s not sure what’s happening here. But he likes it.

And Josh’s not sure what happening here either. He’s the worst flirt in history. He’s _insinuating that Tyler buy him food_ , as if this guy actually found something to like in him.

Tonight’s full of surprises, though.

“Yeah, sure. I’m there Monday through Saturday, 10 to 6. It’s like my 9 to 5, only greasier, and I get to sleep in an extra hour.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope this was?? ok!!!! i feel like it's weird but i always feel that way about my writing sooo idk  
> i might not update for a while because i still have a whole eccentric installment to write and i feel bad for tagging peterick and this chapter not having so i wanted to write a little small stand-alone peterick too.... and then i have regular school stuff :/ but definitely by next week!
> 
> as always, comments are VERY appreciated :0) thanks 4 reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise :/ a new chapter!!!! yeah idk i just was in a really big joshler mood this entire week since ive been :/ rereading and rereading edy fics!!!!  
> anyways- a lil handjob scene between pete and patrick in the first part.

Patrick doesn’t give blowjobs in cars parked in alleyways… _normally._

“Ugh,” He says, taking a swing out of a water bottle that could (most likely) be months old. The water’s warm, thanks to the heat being blasted at 80 degrees, because Pete likes being comfy and cozy while Patrick leans over the center console apparently. It (the water) tastes like dust and also kinda like the way that lipstick smells. Patrick’s not sure what that says about Pete.

“Why did I swallow?” He asks, wincing as the water washes away the taste of… well, _Pete_.

And this is a rhetorical question. And Pete, Pete who’s known Patrick for 2 years, and been having sex with him for 3 months, knows this. But Pete wouldn’t be Pete if he wasn’t constantly trying to crawl under Patrick’s skin.

“Cause you love the taste of my sweet, sweet cum.” Pete says, with a grin, and Patrick drops the water bottle back in the cup holder with a huff and a glare. But Patrick’s glare is cute when Patrick doesn’t mean it.

Pete brings Patrick closer by the lapel of his jacket, and they kiss open-mouthed. Their tongues mingle, they breathe in each other, Pete tastes dust and lipstick, and Patrick whimpers when Pete’s hands move down towards his belt buckle.

“No, come on, we’re gonna late, we-“

“Shhhhh…” Pete’s face drops into the crook of Patrick’s neck, and Patrick leans back into his seat, giving up without much of a fight. He knows it’ll probably look bad, but walking in with a hard dick and being grumpy wouldn’t look good either. It’s all about priorities, and as Pete pulls the zipper on his jeans down, as his hand moves down under the hem of his boxer-briefs, Patrick’s biggest priority is coming.

Patrick’s cock is warm in Pete’s hands, and Patrick’s eyes close as he sinks down further in the passenger seat. “You owe me for this.” Patrick sighs out, and Pete huffs out a laugh. “I owe _you_ for having your dick in my hand?”

Pete spits into his hand, the sound makes Patrick grimace a little, it’s so obscene and gross, but then wet, warm hands greet him, and it’s not so bad. He lets out a small little moan, his hands stretch and grip at whatever’s in sight. Pete’s leg, and the arm rest by the mirror.

“Yes,” Patrick says, as Pete starts slow; welcoming strokes. As if they have all of the time in the world. “because you’re going to make me late.”

“It’s your shop. Josh can open up.” Pete says, and he shifts a little, so that he’s facing him. He leans over, his head goes back to its semi-permanent home, buried in Patrick’s milk-white neck, and he whispers in that raspy voice that makes Patrick’s hips buck up, “We can stay in here all day. Fuck me in the backseat. I’d let you.”

“You’re so annoying.” Patrick says through his teeth, his fingers grip harder on Pete’s knees. “Come on, go faster.”

“So, what are we thinking?” Pete changes the subject, as he twists his wrist, doing exactly what Patrick likes. “I’ll buy you a cup of coffee at the diner. I’m broke. It’s a date.”

“We’d have to be dating for it to be a da- _oh, God, shit, Pete_ ,” Patrick’s grip on Pete’s leg never wavers, and Pete’s almost positive he’s going to see purple and blue. And so, he keeps going.

“Yeah, I know,” Pete waves him off, “But still. Ugh. Imagine us dating. Gross.”

Pete can see it so fucking clearly. It’s everything that they do now, except there’s a label on it. Blowjobs and handjobs in the hot car, with the steamy windows. Maybe he could pick up some flowers on Fridays and bring them into the parlor for Patrick, and when he’s done with a client, he would look at the flowers, and look back at Pete, and kiss him in front of everyone. Maybe it’d be a little heart on Patrick’s coffee-cup.

He wants it so bad that his heart hurts.

He twists his hand again, runs his thumb over the head of Patrick’s dick, listens to the way that Patrick’s breath hitches.

“That’d be so gross,” Patrick agrees after a moment. Patrick shifts a little, his eyes open, and they look at each other. “Not because of you. Cause of me. I’d be _such_ a horrible boyfriend.”

They kiss again. 

“I wouldn’t say that,” Pete begins to say, when they pull away, his hand strokes faster, and Patrick’s hand moves back to its spot on Pete’s leg.

“I would be. I just- I just get bored so easily,” Patrick pants, because Pete’s pulling out all of his big boy tricks, “I would probably cheat on you.”

Ouch.

“I’d cheat on you first,” Pete says, “I’m a compulsive cheater, you know? I’d cheat on you with your older brother.”

Patrick’s close- it only takes Pete to lick a stripe down his neck in the gross way that Pete does, suck down on a spot, and bite, and suddenly Patrick’s coming streaks over Pete’s fist as he cries out, “I’d cheat on you with your _younger brother._ ”

When he comes down from his high, he lets go out of his death-grip on Pete’s leg. He runs his hands over his face, sighs deeply, and says in that sex-sleepy voice he has. “That was good.”

But Pete’s still glaring daggers at Patrick. “Dude. My brother is 17!”

* * *

 _“I like Grouplove enough. By the way.”_ Tyler said to him last night. So, that’s what Josh listens to as he sets the thermostat, flips the ‘closed’ sign, turns the lights back on, leaves his lunch in the backroom. Hannah Hooper’s voice on “ _I’ll follow ya, as if you were my lover, yeah, even if the dance is lost, and we’re all going under_ ” rings in the empty parlor, and thoughts of a single line on a bare wrist seep into Josh’s mind like ink piercing through skin.

Tyler was… different. But Tyler was cute. He had eyes that reminded Josh of chocolate caramel sundaes, and he knew a bunch of cool colors, and he wanted to give Josh a 40 dollar tip for a tattoo that took all but 20 minutes to transfer. And he said to come in, and he’d give him some free Wendy’s. There’s more substance for a crush than the last guy that Josh liked- a guy at a random drug-store that told him that his hair looked like cotton candy, and that he just wanted to eat it off of his head. He’s sorta ashamed to admit that he thought about that interaction for days. It was weird. But not in an endearing _Tyler_ kind of way.

 _Ugh_ , Josh thinks. _A **Tyler** kind of way? Really?_

A moment later, Pete and Patrick walk in, and bring with them a whoosh of cold air. Josh hates spring only for the inconsistent weather- it’s cold when he gets to work, warm when he comes out to check the drawings outside, and cold when he leaves. But anyways- Pete looks a little pissed off- maybe he saw someone eating a breakfast sandwich from a chain- but Patrick looks like he’s glowing. He shimmies out of his jacket, and he scrunches his nose up a little. “The fuck is this?”

He’s talking about the music- Patrick likes to warm up the parlor with Billy Joel and Prince, which doesn’t make sense to Josh because you can’t warm up a space with music. But either way- Patrick practically skips over to where Josh’s phone is, unlocks it, and he switches the music so everyone can have their daily dose of ‘ _New York State of Mind_ ’, even though they’re in fucking Ohio. Soft piano fills the air, and Pete grimaces over by his spot on the stool. His feet are propped up against the glass counters even though Patrick doesn’t like that, and he says through a yawn, “I hate this song.”

“And I hate you.” Patrick replies, barely even paying attention to him. Pete sticks his tongue out at him, and Patrick does the same, and Josh rolls his eyes, as he waits for Joe or Andy to come in and save him from this bullshit. Work is boring sometimes without them- they don't have enough costumers for the 4 artists to be in there at the same time, but it's always more fun to poke at Pete and Patrick when there are people with you. 

“Oh!” Pete suddenly says, and everyone breaks out of their lazy ‘listening to Billy Joel sing in stupid rhymes that don’t make sense about New York’ mood to look over to Pete. “Shit, dude, how was that guy?” He asks, and he drags his feet off the glass, rests his elbows on his legs, and leans forward. “I wanna hear everything.”

“Guy?” Patrick asks, with raised eyebrows, “Josh has a guy?”

Pete nods excitedly, and he practically screams as he says, “YES! Weird guy! He came in at, like, exactly 9 and asked for a tattoo, and I was gonna kick him out, but LazyTown over here said he’d do it.”

‘LazyTown’ is new. ‘Frenchy’ was last week, and ‘Nicki’ was the other. When his hair was green, Pete called him ‘Baby Bop’, as if ‘Barney’ were too easy.

“There are a lot of characters in LazyTown you could-“ “I mean Stephanie. The one with the pink hair. Cause you have pink hair? Get with the program, Steph.”

Josh grinds his teeth together. There are lots of moments when he can say that he loves Pete with all of his heart, one of his best friends in the world, but right now? This is not one of those moments.

Patrick crosses his arms over his chest, and sighs as he says in a chastising voice, “Josh, we’re _technically_ not allowed to give tattoos after closing, because-“

“It was a line! And the lights were off except in my room, it was fine.” Josh waves him off, and he takes a seat in one of the waiting chairs. “And the guy, his name is Tyler, was, like, _cool_. I think he asked me out? Well, no, I told him to buy me lunch instead of giving me a huge tip, and he agreed.”

Pete and Patrick exchange a glance, before they both turn to Josh, and say, at the same time, “What?!”

“What?” Josh repeats after them. “He did. He works at Wendy’s, 10 to 6.”

Pete opens his mouth to say something, probably about how Josh is just contributing to the madness of not shopping small, but he opts against that, and instead says in a voice that sounds like pure disbelief, “Wow. That- _wow_. So, what, you like him?”

Josh shrugs nonchalantly. “Sometimes it’s really that easy.”

Pete and Patrick share another glance, before Patrick tears his eyes away and wipes his hands on his jeans. “I have someone coming in 20 minutes, I’m gonna be in the back.”

And so he leaves. And so he leaves his shitty music playing. Pete and Josh both reach for the phone, but in the end Pete’s the one scrolling through Josh’s saved songs. “Give it up, Steph,” Pete grumbles, “You have a _date_ at _Wendy’s._ I deserve a stupid song at the least."

* * *

Josh would have loved to say that he went to Wendy's, and that he shared a vanilla Frosty with Tyler, and an order of fries. Josh would have admitted that he thinks the fries and Frosty combination was the worst thing in the world, and Tyler would have called him crazy, and then Tyler would have come in for another tattoo, and they'd talk about colors.

But instead, Josh finds himself busy all day, with barely enough time to eat lunch. Tattoos, some touch-ups, some quotes, some birds flying away on shoulder-blades, and magnificent roses underneath collarbones, fill up his day, and suddenly it’s 6:30, and Tyler isn’t working anymore.

It’s not like Josh could leave anyways- Brendon and Hayley have ganged up on him, have crowded him into a seat, and there’s no escaping them. 

Technically they shouldn’t be in there. And technically Patrick shouldn’t let his dog roam around freely, yet she runs after the little ball that Brendon throws around the room. And technically- just, there are _a lot_ of technicalities that get looked past. It’s part of the Penny charm- you come for a tattoo and you end up having a conversation with teenagers about _stupid economic homework_ , and you're petting a dog. And you get your tattoo, and a lecture from Pete about supporting small businesses on your way out.

“So?” Hayley asks, tapping her sneaker-clad foot against the hardwood impatiently. They, Hayley and Brendon, are just standing around Josh, eating spoonfuls of a Wendy’s Frosty. Josh wonders if they saw Tyler, wonders how his tattoo looks now that the bandage is off.

“So what?” Josh asks, with his arms crossed. Patrick’s out buying some new supplies and Pete’s just outside with Travie, helping him with a painting that Patrick commissioned for the shop. He mentally calls Pete back in, _come on, dude, you can't leave me in here with them_ , but either a) Pete can't read minds b) Pete doesn't care or c) Pete wants Josh to suffer with them. Josh thinks it's all of the above.

“We wanna know about the Donnie Darko guy!” Brendon exclaims, and Hayley nods excitedly. They remind Josh of twins in horror movies. Creepily in sync. “We heard about him through Pete. We wanna know _everything_.”

“Why? There’s not much to say. I didn’t even get a chance to see him today.” Josh says, and Hayley pouts. “Aw, man, that sucks.”

“Yeah, I guess, but- I just did a tattoo for him, he has nice eyes, he got me to talk to him while I worked. It’s nothing. I’m sure-“ he waves his hands in the air, trying to remember the name of  Brendon’s boyfriend, “-whatever-his-face can provide you with better gossip.”

“You know his name is Ryan!” Brendon yells at him.

“You know who I meant!” Josh yells back.

“Wait. Pete said he worked at Wendy’s, right?” Hayley asks, and she grabs Brendon’s arm. “Oh my God! Cash register! The one with the line tattoo, just like what Pete said! Fluffy hair, kinda weird face?”

"Huh?” Brendon's eyebrows furrow as he thinks for a moment, and then a moment later, he has a eureka moment. "OH. OHHHHHH. Yeah, him! That's the Donnie guy?"

Josh hates small towns, hates that everyone can run into everyone, but he mostly hates that Brendon and Hayley saw Tyler before _he_ did. And he also hates that Tyler's being called the 'Donnie' guy.

Either way- Josh nods. “I wouldn’t say _weird face_ , but sure. That's him.”

“I mean, he’s no _Ryan.”_ Brendon says- Brendon and Ryan make Josh want to tear his pink cotton candy hair out- “But he wasn’t bad looking either. Kinda like you! You guys go together.”

Josh blinks at them, before he looks back at the door. _Isaac Brock, let a walk-in walk in, **please**._

“Wait, did you just call Josh ugly?!” Hayley asks Brendon, and then they both laugh for a solid minute while Josh looks up at them with a tired expression. “Sorry!” They both say at the same time, and when they glance at each other, they start giggling again.

Thankfully, though, a walk-in walks in. He hears the bell chime and before he even looks at who walked in, he's thanking whoever is up there.

“Um,” Tyler says, clutching a Wendy’s bag in his good hand. “Hi?”

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand Josh is officially on break.

* * *

He dips a chicken nugget into Sweet and Sour sauce, as Tyler rubs some more soap over his tattoo. It looks good, even if it looks a little bruised. “Wendy’s chicken nuggets are so moist.” Josh says, mostly to himself, but mostly not. “But it’s good. It’s like it’s melting in my mouth.”

“That’s kinda gross.” Tyler replies, but he looks over his shoulder, and grins at him.

“So,” Brendon says, from the door-frame, and Josh jumps in fright. “Can I get a chicken nugget? Hi Tyler.”

“Hi.” Tyler says, turning around so that he’s leaning against the sink. “Josh, give him a chicken nugget.”

Josh hands one over, and then another for Hayley. They’re both still out there, probably eavesdropping. Josh doesn’t care. Let them.

Brendon skips on out, and Josh leans across the chair to slam the door shut. Not even 24 hours ago, they were both in this room, and Tyler was getting a tattoo, and they didn't know each other's names and now they’re sharing a meal. Go figure.

“Let me see?” Josh asks, and Tyler holds his hand out. Josh doesn’t touch- his fingers are far too dirty to touch a tattoo that fresh- but he does coo when he sees it. He’s never done a tattoo that simple, but it might be his favorite one.

“I really like it. My folks not so much.” Tyler sighs, sitting side-by-side next to Josh. “I didn’t even think they would really notice, until this morning. I think they think it’s just, like, pen. Or something. Like I wouldn’t get a tattoo this stupid.”

“It’s not stupid.” Josh says, and Tyler shrugs. “I guess. A lot of things I like are stupid. Or not useful.”

“Like?” Josh asks, and Tyler shrugs again. “I don’t know. Just stuff. I like the piano. But sometimes when I play, I just, like, I don’t know.”

They sit in silence for a moment. Josh can hear impatient tapping on the other side of the door.

“Do you play in like a band, or something? Or-“

Tyler reaches to rub at his tattoo, Josh gently nudges his hand away. “Uh. Church? See, it’s stupid. I don’t even. No, I do. I just- I believe. In God. You know? But sometimes I go there and just feel like puking all over the carpet. TMI?”

Josh picks up another chicken nugget, dips it into sauce, takes a bite. “Nah.”

“Well… yeah. I just feel like I’m screaming to an empty sky. And church is like, is like, is like not comforting, cause everyone is _so_ convinced. And I’m not.” Tyler pauses for a minute, nibbles on a french fry. “But the piano sounds super good in there, like, acoustics wise, so there’s that. My keyboard in my room just sounds like shit.”

“I wish I could play piano.” Josh says, sighs, and he takes a fry from out of the greasy bag. “It looks so peaceful.”

Tyler laughs, but he doesn’t explain why.

This wasn’t the meal that Josh was picturing. There are no Frosties to begin with. It’s just some moist chicken nuggets and not enough Sweet and Sour sauce and some super salty fries with no water to wash it down with. But somehow it’s better. Tyler talks with his hands, and whenever he waves his hands in front of his face, Josh catches a flash of dark. They talk about the flowers on the wall, Josh’s tattoos, about Tyler’s best friend with blonde hair and blue eyes, about the _next_ tattoo.

“Next?!” Tyler asks, shaking his head. “I think this was it. My rebellious phase.”

“This was part of your rebellious phase?” Josh asks with a little disbelief in his voice- Josh’s rebellious phase was a little less tattoos and a little more weed. And by ‘a little’, he means ‘a lot’.

And Tyler nods. “Yeah, kinda. I can’t even, like, imagine a next one. I mean-“ he looks at Josh’s arm, his eyes trace all of the patterns and colors. “-that’s crazy. It’s so beautiful, but it’s crazy. I can’t imagine that on me. It’s too good.”

“I can imagine it. And I’m not just saying that cause sleeves are expensive.” Josh says through a smile. “But I can totally imagine it. Or I can imagine…” he trails off, and he points to the line around Tyler’s wrist. “that.”

“You don’t have to imagine it, it’s right there.”

“Yeah, I know, but… I don’t know. Imagine it like an arm-band or something.”

Tyler scrunches up his nose. “There’s no meaning behind it. The line one had a purpose. Y’know, I don’t have to… well, you know.” Tyler says, and yes, Josh knows.

“Maybe a cross.” Tyler says.

“Maybe a cross.” Josh repeats, and in his head, he's already begun drawing it. Something dark. A perfect contradiction to Tyler and all of his colors. Something dark, and something with a cross.

The bell on the door rings, and Patrick’s voice on “ _Penny_!” and “ _Hey, why are you guys on the floor? Who’s in there with Josh?_ ” is enough to break Josh out of his thoughts.

“I see that look on your face,” Tyler warns him, but it’s something playful. “I think I’m done with tattoos. The after-care is so annoying.”

“Just keep washing it with anti-bacterial soap, and in 2 days, after you wash it, apply some ointment to it? You can get it at the drug-store, wait, let me get a pen and write it down for you.”

He searches in some drawers, as the door swings open. Hayley and Brendon are on the floor by the door, but they quickly scurry away, as if Josh couldn’t tell what they were doing. Patrick just peers into the room, gives Tyler a look, like he doesn’t want to make it as obvious as Hayley and Brendon that he’s interested in who Tyler is _,_ and then he says in an indifferent voice, “J, can you not bring food in there? Thanks.”

The door shuts, and Josh finishes scribbling the name of the product on a Post-It Note.

“If you apply that, it should be good. But do a thin layer, cause if you apply it too heavily, it’s gonna be all goopy.”

“Goopy. Got it.” Tyler says, but he hands the Post-It back. “I, um. I think you forgot to write your number down.”

A blink.

“In case I have any questions. You know.”

Josh takes it back, scribbles his number back on there. “So… you’ll text me later? About the tattoo?”

“Yeah, about the tattoo.” Tyler grins. “Definitely about the tattoo. But this one, not the new one.”

 _Not the new one,_ Tyler said. The second that Tyler leaves, the moment after Patrick half-heartedly reminds him _we don’t want mice,_ Josh begins drawing a negative space cross.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as a new yorker i can honestly say... that "new york state of mind" can choke. im a "she's always a woman" type of girl :'( but i also really like "movin out" cause beebs covered it at my DOAB date and he sounded so good! i love him! 
> 
> anyways- idk if anyone noticed! but hayley and brendon work at a music store 'urie electric' and i ALSO wrote a peterick fic a while back (wanted: piano lesson :')) where hayley and brendon work at 'urie electric' so i just kinda added that as a little homage to that fic :'( think of it as... an alternate universe wink wink
> 
> ONE MORE THING: EVERYTHING HAS A PURPOSE I PROMISE IM NOT JUST WRITING ABOUT PETE AND PATRICK IN ALLEYWAYS FOR NO REASON i promise everything will kinda connect, and i just idk i dont wanna make it JUST a joshler fic ya know? but i promise there's gonna be more tyler cause ik that's what people came to read and aaaa im just all over the place w my organization but i promise hayley and brendon and travie serve a purpose.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAAAAAAAAA im so sorry this is! so fucking late! why am i the worst at updating?!?!??!

Even though Tyler doesn’t get in his car to drive to work until 9:30, his day always starts at 6 AM, right after Maddy gets out of the shower. He doesn’t even really need an alarm anymore, unless he stays up super late- the smell of Maddy’s too-sweet body wash coupled with her fruity shampoo is enough to lull him out of his slumber, down the hallway, and into the bathroom, with a towel in his hands.

Then, showering is only so comfortable and stress-relieving when you’re trying to avoid soaking your still fresh tattoo, and trying to wash your entire body with the super small washcloth while everyone beats down the door and demands for their turn.

“Hurry the fuck up!” Zack knocks on the door, as Tyler spreads goopy shit all over his tattoo. He’s standing in his towel now, in front of the mirror, and his hair drips onto the floor as he hums quietly. The key to dealing with Zack is to just pretend like he’s not there. “Some of us have shit to do!” Zack continues, and his fist bangs into the door. “Don’t make me get Mom.”

“ _Don’t make me get Mom!”_ Tyler replies back, in a mocking voice, as he rolls his eyes. His hair drips over the goopy stuff on his tattoo, and he makes a face at it. Gross. “You act like I don’t have a job.”

Zack barks out an ugly laugh. “Yeah, flipping burgers. Even a fucking retard could do that.”

The thing about Zack is that he’s wicked smart, but he has a horrible heart. And a poor choice in vocabulary words.

Tyler bites down hard on his lip, and he recites in his head, ‘ _happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts, the prospect of seeing Grouplove live, happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts, Jenna, happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts, Josh’s smile’_ , and then he stops biting down on his lip. He calms down. His shoulders loosen. He forces himself to smile.

He curls his free hand around the towel to make sure it doesn’t fall off, and he opens the door. He’s staring right at Zack, at Zack and his stupid university tee-shirt. Stupid scholarship. Stupid smart idiot.

But Zack just pushes past him as he walks into the bathroom, and he doesn’t give Tyler another glance. So much for keeping the peace.

As he walks back to his room, down the hall, he hears the news on the TV wafting up the stairs, along with the smell of fried eggs and burnt toast. The coffee brews in the pot, but Tyler knows he’s going to have to make his own. One cup for Mom, one for Dad, one for Maddy, and one for Zack. And then one for Tyler, 7 minutes later.

He changes into a fresh pair of sweats, his hair drips into the hood of the hoodie, and he almost trips over his own feet as he walks down the stairs, as he walks into the kitchen. It’s 6:30, the sun isn’t out yet, Maddy’s fussing about calories, and Jay is pretending to puke as Tyler’s mother pours him a glass of milk. It’s a regular morning.

“Morning.” Tyler says to everyone, as he takes a seat. He grabs a plate from the center of the table, and he leans across the table for some of the fried eggs, but then Maddy gasps in a quiet sort of way. “Oh my God. It’s _real_.”

Tyler looks up at her, with furrowed eyebrows, and he follows her line of vision- right down to his wrist, where the thin black line sticks out more than anything. 

“Oh. Yeah. You thought it was pen?”

“She probably thought no one would be stupid enough to get a line tattooed.” His mother says, setting some burnt toast on the table. “You know you’re going to regret that, right? I mean, really, Tyler, did you even think that through? You know how difficult it is, getting a job. And now—God, I can’t even have this conversation.”

She turns back on her heel back to the stove. The table gets awfully quiet. Tyler’s father is at the head of the table, on his phone, probably reading the news or something, and he clears his throat. “Your mother is right. That was a stupid decision.”

Sometimes Tyler’s life doesn’t seem real. Like, the fact that he’s legally allowed to drink, yet he can’t get a tattoo without everyone making a fuss about it.

“I can always cover it. It’s not that big of a deal.” Tyler says, quietly, looking down at his plate. “I had enough money. I like how it looks.”

He wonders briefly if this was how the conversation went when Josh was 16 and got his first tattoo illegally.

There's a loud _bang_ , as Tyler’s mother slams her spatula on the granite counters. When she whips around and glares at Tyler, he knows he’s done for.

“Let me tell you something,” she begins. Maddy and Jay look down at their food and stay quiet as Tyler’s mother gets closer. Tyler doesn't necessarily blame them- he's the black sheep of the family, and it's useless to try to defend him once they start berating him, especially since there's a huge risk in interfering with the line of fire. Maddy doesn't want her mother to comment on her weight, even though Tyler doesn't see it, and Jay doesn't want a comment on his inability to shoot a basket. 

His mother points the utensil at Tyler, and she says in a low voice that sends shivers up Tyler’s spine, “You live under my roof, do you understand me? And until you move your lazy ass out of my home, you are to follow my rules.”

“I pay you rent!” Tyler tries to say, to defend himself, “It was just something in the moment, I wasn’t thinking-“

“Of course you weren’t thinking. There’s no brain inside of your head for you to use.” Tyler’s father says to him, matter-of-factly, setting his phone down. He crosses his arms over his chest, and he says in a voice that sounds like it's only scratching the surface. Like he's just warming up. Like he's trying to egg Tyler on, so that there's more he can say. It's fucked up- Tyler's 22, he's still getting lectured by his parents and he still lets it manifest and sit around in his head, lets it melt and seep into the cracks. All of his ' _happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts_ ,' dissolve in it. 

“Why would you ever think about consequences? You’ve proven time and time again that you aren’t responsible," is what his father says. Maddy bites her lip. No one touches their breakfast.

Then, Zack strolls into the kitchen with a lazy grin on his face. He’s probably having a fucking field trip. "What'd I miss?"

“Tyler’s—Show your brother what you did.” His mother says. She turns on her heel when she smells the toast burning, but his father watches on as Zack takes a seat next to Tyler, and looks down at the line on his wrist. “Oh- _oh shit_. That’s a _real_ tattoo?”

“Don’t curse at the table, son.” His father says, but he says it with this sort of chuckle that makes Tyler want to slam his head into the table. Zack could kill someone, and his father would laugh as he helped him clean the blood, and he’d say, “Alright, son, let’s not do this anymore, huh?”

“Sorry, Dad,” Zack says, laughing too, but he’s laughing at Tyler. “I’m just so _bewildered_. Tyler’s tattoo is real. It’s not even of anything good, geez! What the hell is that, a line? What’s that supposed to mean?”

And Tyler would love to tell everyone exactly the tattoo means, and he’s about to, ‘ _It’s about cutting,_ ’ he’d say, ‘ _which is something I did because of you sadistic pieces of shit’_ , and he envisions himself storming up the stairs like every angsty 13 year old in the movies, and packing up all of his shit and dragging his keyboard into his car, and never looking back.

Except the words get caught in his throat, and the glare of his father is too strong. And he’s not an angsty 13 year old, he’s 22 and he’s a full grown adult, an adult who doesn't have enough money to live on his own.

He instead stutters out a weak response. “It’s, it’s, um, it’s personal, and-“

“What’s personal about a line? That’s so lame.” Zack shakes his head. “Right, Mads?”

Zack reaches across the table, and grabs a plate, and Maddy says, her voice low and quiet, “I dunno.”

“That’s the problem with this family,” Zack says, shaking his head again. Tyler and Maddy share a _look_. A ‘ _who died and made this guy king’_ kind of look. “none of you have opinions. Is that why you dropped out, Tyler? Because you didn’t have any opinions and couldn’t participate in class discussions?”

“I don’t think I’m very hungry anymore.” Tyler says, loudly, as he steps out of his chair. “But for the record, fuck you.”

Maddy brings a hand to her forehead, and she mouths ‘ _Nooooo’_ , and Jay watches on with glee- curse words at 6:30 is the most entertaining thing in the world. Tyler’s mother returns to the table, and Tyler’s father points to Tyler’s seat. “Sit down, Tyler.”

Burnt toast gets dropped on the table. Tyler imagines seeing Grouplove with Jenna. A flash of pink hair is there, in his sight, as he jumps around and screams “ _HERE’S TO LIVING OUT OUR DREAMS’_ but he’s not sure if that’s Hannah Hooper or if that’s _Josh_.

There's no need to explain what his parents said, what Zack added under his breath- everything blurs together in Tyler's mind. It's the same thing, always, and it shouldn't matter what they say, but it does. Things about how Tyler is lazy, how he should have some sort of idea of what he wants to do with his life, because he's been sitting on it for 3 whole years, and how he should be doing this, and he should be doing that, and how disrespectful he is, not asking before he did something so radical and detrimental to a career he doesn't even have like getting a tattoo. They tell him that he's an idiot, that he can't work at Wendy's forever, that at one point he needs to figure out what he wants to do, because soon everyone's going to be out of the house and living their own lives, and he's going to be stuck right there. 

"If you don't change," his mother said, her words icy and cruel, and not with a tinge of motherly love, "then you're doomed to stay in the same place you've always been. Are you going to be 40 and still working at Wendy's? Sleeping in the room you slept in when you were 5 years old? Leeching off your parents?"

Eventually, Maddy clears her throat and informs their parents that she's going to be late if they don't drop her off soon. Zack retires back into his room on the middle floor. His father goes back to his phone. Jay continues to slave over the milk in the cup, and their mother scolds him on her way out of the house that she's going to force it down his throat if he doesn't drink it. Tyler throws the food he never ate into the garbage, and stalks back to his room. 

 _Woe is me_ , he thinks bitterly to himself,  _everything sucks._

His parents said no more tattoos, or else they would kick him out. And then Tyler would really have nothing. So, in a fit of sadness and self-hatred, he digs out to the Post-It note that Josh wrote his number down on. The stuff for his tattoo was already taken care of- he had picked it up after his little date with Josh.

 _Josh_. He glances at Josh’s number one more time, written in Josh’s blocky handwriting. Tears begin to fill his stupid, stupid eyes as he thinks about never seeing Josh again, about never giving the relationship or whatever the fuck they had going on, a chance. But his parents said no tattoos, and Tyler’s pretty much trained in listening to his parents.

His fingers shake as he rips the note into pieces, pale yellow shreds that fall to the floor of his room, and his fingers shake as he reaches for his phone on the side of the bed.

Jenna answers on the 2nd ring.

“Tyler? It’s, like, 7 AM, dude. What’s wrong?”

* * *

It's a beautiful day outside, and Josh knows this very well, because Josh is sitting out on Travie’s fire-escape, instead of hanging out in the parlor.

It all started with a discussion: Whether ‘The Big Bang Theory’ was actually funny, or it was just background noise. Pete and Josh were on the side of ‘it’s just background noise’, but Patrick legitimately found it funny. Cue a stupid comment on Pete’s part, cue another dismissive comment on Patrick’s part, and suddenly it became a screaming match.

But then, and Josh is a witness to this: there was a flash of something in Pete’s eyes, and then the entire mood shifted. Josh could literally _sense_ Pete’s boner. Like, he just knew. It’s like that thing where you can tell that it was raining earlier in the day, just from the smell of the air? Like that. But with Pete’s boner.

Patrick pushed Josh out of the door after that, barely giving him time to grab his notebook from the glass counter where Pete is usually stationed, and he flipped the closed sign as he told Josh to come back in an hour.

It’s probably bad for business. Patrick’s a sole proprietor. He probably shouldn’t close for an hour to have hate sex with Pete, which is _definitely_ what’s happening. But it’s a nice day, people don’t really walk-in on Thursday mornings, there are no appointments, and Travie has pink lemonade, so it’s not so bad.

Travie’s niece is inside, watching an episode of Barney, so they keep the door open, just in case something happens. “She’s really into jumping nowadays,” Travie says, shaking his head, “so my thing is, I don’t want her to headfirst dive into the glass coffee table.”

Josh takes a sip of his sweet lemonade as he shakes his head. “I wouldn’t worry, bro. Barney’s captivating.”

Travie’s busy painting, but Josh is busy designing. He has a pale yellow Post-It on every page, for every design he has to make, and he still has 3 more to finish up, but he can’t stop fixing and tweaking the negative space cross on the page labeled ‘Tyler’ in his blocky handwriting.

In actuality, there’s nothing _too_ too complicated about it. It’s just what the name entails- a negative space cross. It looks like two lowercase ‘i’’s next to each other, and in the space between those ‘i’’s there’s a cross. But there’s so much Josh wants to do with it, he wants it to be _perfect_. He erases stray lines, he draws the lines, he makes everything blockier. Next to him, Travie dips his paintbrush into clear water, he swishes it around, and dries the brush on a piece of Bounty before he moves on to the new color. They work quietly, sipping their lemonade, and listening to Izzy scream at the top of her lungs, “ _I love you, you love me_ ,”

“Shit,” Travie says, looking down at Josh’s page. “That looks cool. What’s that?”

Josh moves the paper closer to Travie, and he slumps his shoulders. “A shit design. I can’t get it right.”

Travie brings it closer to his face, and he squints. “What is shit about it, exactly? It looks good. You gotta stop doubting yourself, man.”

“I’m not, er, _doubting_ myself. I just want it to be perfect, y’know?” Josh takes his drawing back, and he glances over to Travie’s painting- it’s a whole bunch of purples and greens, like Barney on acid. Travie is so fucking creative- everything he does is beautiful, all of his paintings are full of color and swirly lines and nothing looks identical. The flowers he did for Josh’s room, none of them are exactly the same, they all have a different sort of look and feel to them. Where Travie excels, Josh fails. There’s nothing creative he can do for Tyler. There’s nothing creative about a stupid cross.

“I mean, it’s a cross, bro. What are you gonna do? Design something around it? Simple is good.” Travie says to him, and he points to the sketch with a dry paintbrush. “This is good. Who’s it for, someone I know? I know Bill said he was gonna come in and make an appointment soon.”

With the whole of Ohio probably knowing who Tyler is, what with how much Brendon and Hayley and Pete and Patrick talk, Travie not knowing who Tyler is is a breath of fucking fresh air.

“A friend.” Josh says, with a small smile. “He’s a friend.”

He leaves the design the way it is- two pitch black ‘i’’s next to each other, making a cross in the middle. He imagines Tyler’s face when he sees it, his eyes scanning over the page with his bottom lip between his teeth, he imagines Tyler looking up to him and saying in an awe-stricken voice, “ _Whoa_ ”.

He can’t wait for Tyler to text him. He glances down at his phone, just to see if there’s a message there, and there _is_ , but…

patrick: _Break’s over. Lol._

Oh well. Maybe Tyler will stop by after work or something…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! again, i'm so sorry this chapter came out so late- i had more than half of the chapter written before i scratched it all and started over because i didnt like the direction it was headed in :/ im still gonna use parts of what i had but idk! at least now there's at least Some Conflict that isnt abt pete and patrick being dumb dumbs and pete hating wendy's. so im sorry that it ended up bein really short :/ it was either cut this chapter short or continue my ideas for chapter 5 (which i already planned out) and have it end at an awkward place :/ plus i wanted to post something so that i wasnt leaving you guys hanging for like. 2 weeks lol. 
> 
> next chapter: brendon and hayley and RYAN take on wendy's. its gonna be lit. im gonna ask to go to wendy's and i'll take notes on the moistness of the nuggets. im hindu and therefore dont eat beef, so let me kno if wendy's beef is also moist please & thank you.


	5. Chapter 5

**_A LITTLE MORE THAN A WEEK LATER…_ **

A beaten down and ratty looking car tears out of a high school parking lot at 10:03 AM- it practically vibrates with the loud, loud bass from a song being blasted, and it swerves in and out of the correct lane, as the driver and the passenger passionately sing to each other.

“ _WHY YOU LOOKIN’ AT ME NOW?! WHY YOU LOOKIN AT ME AGAIN?!”_ Brendon screams to Hayley, Hayley screams to Brendon, and Grimes sings along with them. They move their shoulders to the beat, Brendon’s hands come off the steering wheel so that he can do some dance move that sends the car into the next lane, and some pedestrians on the side of the road stare at the car in awe. 

And Ryan Ross sits in the back of the car, unamused as ever.

“Yeah,” Ryan says, reaching over to turn the music’s volume down a considerable amount, “why are you looking at her? Since you should be, uh, looking at the road?”

In hindsight, Ryan probably should have expected this. Nothing good or safe ever really comes out of Hayley and Brendon being together: there was the time that they had all ate a whole weed brownie each before realizing that that was far too much, the time that they had snuck into community pool and had almost drowned when Brendon jumped off the diving board even though he didn’t know how to swim, the time when they cut English to get fast food at 10:05 AM, a time that Ryan’s stomach can’t handle beef burgers and salty fries… and, oh wait, that’s now.

Now that Brendon had gotten his license (after his 4th attempt- Ryan’s convinced that the DMV just gave him his license to get rid of him), things were becoming increasingly spontaneous. Because they didn’t have to ride their bikes or walk everywhere anymore- they had Brendon’s shitty car and Brendon’s loud music, and the maps in the glove box that he showed them with eager eyes, and the phrase ‘ _We should travel the country’_ that left his mouth every time they got into the car, even if it were to do something as boring and plain as go to school.

The absence of the loud music seems to improve Brendon’s sight, because he immediately grabs the wheel, and steers the car back into the correct lane. When they reach the next stoplight, he turns around in his seat, and he says to Ryan in a pissed-off kind of voice, “Are you questioning my driving abilities? You get your license, then critique me!”

“I’m just saying,” Ryan says, exasperated, trying to salvage the situation, “that I don’t wanna die at 17 because you guys were singing to Grimes too passionately. Where are we going anyways? Wendy’s?”

Hayley hums, as Brendon steps on the gas the second the light turns green. The car lurches forward, Ryan feels sick, and the music gets turned up a little. “Yeah, Wendy’s. I want some fries, and we’re gonna check out this guy there.”

“Josh’s boyfriend.” Brendon clarifies, with his eyes surprisingly trained on the road. “He hasn’t texted Josh back in, like, 2 weeks, and Josh is upset and moody and annoying, so we’re gonna asses the situation. Don’t worry, your bony ass is the only one for me. Does Wendy’s having a breakfast menu? Or are we gonna have to get burgers?”

This is another thing that Ryan doesn’t understand: why Brendon and Hayley insist on hanging out with the guys at the tattoo parlor. They’re nice… Ryan guesses. Not enough for Ryan to want to hang around them all of the time, though.

But with Brendon and Hayley, it’s best to go with the flow. After dating Brendon for 2 years, being friends with Hayley for 2 years, Ryan’s gotten somewhat used to it, the plans to annoy the guys at the tattoo parlor so that they crack and give them tattoos and the texts at 4 AM with ‘ _Im en route 2 ur house, listen my song and tell me it’s good I love youu’_ , and the shaky driving, and dyeing Hayley’s hair in the school bathroom.

“Uh… according to Google, they do.” Hayley says, scrolling through her phone, as Brendon makes a sharp turn, causing Ryan to slam his head against the window. “But I’m still down for moist chicken nuggets,” she continues, “because I love feeding my body garbage and letting it rot me from the inside out.”

“I think I’m good with a water.” Ryan says, as he sinks further into his seat. Missing English for this was a big mistake. A big, big mistake.

* * *

 Working at Wendy’s wasn’t much different than working at Taco Bell in the grand scheme of things. People still gave him an attitude when he said that he couldn’t give them 50 containers of sweet and sour sauce for free, people still did that thing where they gave him cash, and only after he punched the amount into the register did they give him change, and people still asked to see the manager over the stupidest things. A day ago, an old lady with leopard print glasses cursed at him and demanded to get a refund because her food didn’t taste good. Not because of the way the food was prepared, not because her order was wrong… but because Tyler didn’t deliver her food with a smile.

Tyler doesn’t really do the smiling thing on command. He’s mostly scowls and yawns.

It’s 10:05, and Tyler’s busy fixing up the playlist that his manager insists on using. The store is mostly empty and quiet, save for the crinkling the hot oil, the sizzling of burgers on stoves, the tap of people’s shoes on the floor, and the tune of a far too familiar Jason Mraz song soon fills in the gaps of silence. Tyler doesn’t get why they have to play the same thing every day, but the last thing that Tyler needs to get is fired so… ‘Lucky’ begins its course.

It’s too quiet in the store, too hollow, but Tyler prefers this over the 3 PM rush- tripping over himself trying to deliver orders for bitter teenagers and impatient parents with _so many things to do, I don’t have time to wait around_ , and a Frosty will inevitably spill over the front of his red outfit, and then he’s going to have to spend his break washing it off and drying his wet shirt underneath the horrible hand dryer that doesn’t dry things as much as it sprays water away.

So, as Tyler fixes the volume so that’s loud enough to be heard, but soft enough that people can talk normally over it, as the oil crinkles and the burgers sizzle, the bell on the door rings, and when Tyler turns to look at who’s coming in 7 minutes after opening, he’s greeted by 3 people. 3 people that make Tyler immediately duck underneath the counter and slam his head on the cabinets that threaten to open, thanks to the mountains of sweet and sour sauce poorly contained within. 

“Tyler?” one of co-worker asks, with a concerned look on her face. “Are you okay?”

“Huh? Oh. Uh. I dropped a penny.” he says, and he quickly scans the floors he just swept for a penny.

“Do you need help?” she asks, and before Tyler can decline, because a penny wasn’t actually  dropped, and now he’s gonna feel like a total asshole for having her search for a nonexistent penny, she drops to her knees and starts searching too.

“No, that’s- oh, God, uh,” he stammers, and he hears voices directly above him that could only be Brendon and Hayley and Friend.

“-was like, ‘no, that’s okay, I don’t wanna check out your sex dungeon, but thanks for offering, please don’t kill me’. And I was 14! I mean, did I lie to this grown ass man and tell him I was 20? Yeah, but that’s not the point. The point is that I could have died via sex dungeon.” Brendon (presumably) says, and Tyler and his co-worker share a worried and confused glance.

“I don’t have any words for that. I… I’m searching for words. And I can’t find any.” Someone adds, and a girl laughs. “That’s how you know it’s serious- when Ryan can’t find any words. Anyways- I’m still up for getting nuggets. They serve nuggets at 10, right?”

His co-worker gives him a look, _you deal with this, I’ll find the penny_ , so Tyler pulls himself up, wincing as he does, and the 3 teenagers give him weird looks as he does it. Which he—they’re the ones talking about sex dungeons; Tyler should be giving them the weird looks. But- “Yeah, we do. Everything on the lunch menu is open and the breakfast menu closes at noon.”

“Oh, my God!” Hayley says, the girl with the blonde hair and blue side bangs from a couple weeks ago, “Tyler! Wow! You’re here! Again! How crazy is that! Did you ever text Josh?”

Tyler didn't- Tyler tore up Josh's number. And the only digits he can remember is the Columbus area code- _614_.

His co-worker comes back up, and tosses a penny onto the counter with a grin. “Got it. You good here?”

And Tyler’s going to say no, because he has to fix the playlist that’s already on and sweep the swept floors and flip the burgers that are already being flipped, but Brendon speaks for him, flashing a huge smile to his co-worker. “I think we’re good! Right, Tyler?”

“Right…”

They’re not gonna beat him up in his own work place- right? It must be nice to be Josh, to have scary friends with big book bags and intense glares.

He wonders briefly if Josh sent them here, but Tyler has a gut feeling that this was their own doing.

“So,” Hayley says again, “did you? Text him? Josh?”

“I’ve been busy.” Tyler says, and he smooths his hands over his apron- sweaty palms. “Sorry. What can I get you guys?”

“Why not?” Brendon presses, and he steps up a little, as Ryan and Hayley stand behind him with crossed arms. “Do you not like him? Cause you could have just told him that instead of leaving him hanging, you know? That’s kinda dick move. A _cowardly_ move, if you ask me.”

Tyler’s not a coward. Tyler’s not a coward. Tyler’s not a coward. Tyler’s not a coward…?

Tyler stares at them, wide-eyed. How in the shit is he supposed to even respond to that? His answer is cowardly, it’s because he’s afraid of his parents kicking him out. He’s afraid of the thought that his parents will never love him again, because he’s trying, really, he just doesn’t know what he wants to do and he’s good at nothing but flipping burgers like a ‘fucking retard’.

He thinks he’s going to puke. But that would be an even worse response. _Why don’t you like our friend?_ Puke. Watery from the second pot of coffee in the morning.

“Babe, he looks like he’s gonna puke.” Ryan says, resting a hand on Brendon’s shoulder, and pulling him back a little. “Maybe he really was busy.”

“I was busy.” Tyler says, stresses, reinforces. “I _do_ like Josh. It’s just not a good time. What can I get you guys?”

“Not even one measly little text? At the end of the night? On the toilet? Nothing?” Brendon asks, and Ryan presses a hand to his forehead. “On the toilet? Really?”

“What?! Are we all going to pretend that-“ Brendon begins to say, before Hayley pushes him to the side with a huff. Tyler is just so fucking uncomfortable right now, he just wants to punch in their orders and give them their food, and let them leave, but they’re adamant on staying and making Tyler talk.

“We just want to know the truth. Josh is our friend, if you don’t like him then you’d be saving everyone a lot of time. So… spill. And then we’ll order.”

In hindsight it’d be a lot easier for Tyler to say that he didn’t like Josh. But his voice, his words, have a mind of their own. “I do like Josh, but I just can’t see him anymore. I’m not allowed to get any more tattoos or else my parents will kick me out? Happy? Can you just place your order now?”

“Wow, rude,” Brendon notes, but Hayley gives him this sad sort of pitying look that makes Tyler want to coil back. He doesn’t want sympathy, he, again, just wants them to leave. “Well… then just don’t get any more tattoos. You can still hang out with Josh without getting one, you _do_ know that, right?”

“Yeah, I do. But I just- I don’t really wanna. I don’t know. Can-“

Brendon blinks at him- his face tells everything he isn’t saying. He thinks Tyler’s just pathetic. “Geez, dude. Codependent, much?”

“Yeah. That’s kinda what life is like when you’re paying rent with barely any money to begin with.”

This whole interaction makes Tyler want to quit. Just walk out now. He’ll be homeless, sure, but at least he wouldn’t owe anyone shit. Owe his family time and money. Owe Hayley, Brendon, and Ryan an explanation for a decision he already regrets, a decision that has nothing to do with them.

“Wait, backtrack. You just said that you live with your parents.” Hayley says, frowning, with her eyebrows furrowed. “You pay your own parents rent?”

“Yeah… They just think I’m bumming off of them.” Tyler says, smoothing his hands over his apron again. “It’s fine. Whatever. Your explanation has been given. _Please_ just place your order.”

Brendon, Ryan, and Hayley all exchange glances.

“But… if you’re already paying them rent, then why does it make a difference? Like, if you move out or not? Just leave, y’know?” Ryan says to Tyler, in this weird type of soothing voice- his voice is soft, melodic… like a lullaby, almost. “Then you can make your own decisions, and your parents don’t have to dictate your life.”

Tyler wishes family didn’t mean as much as it did to him.

“Because I don’t want them to hate me. I’m their son, and- Can-“

“Oh my God, just give us a 20 piece chicken nugget and a large fry and 2 frosties and a water! Okay! And it doesn’t matter what your parents think, because it’s your life, and they’re gonna die, and you’re gonna be here, and you’re gonna be unhappy for them? But it’s your life! It doesn’t matter! Parents don’t know shit! Just—leave! They should be begging for _your_ forgiveness! You didn’t even text a guy you liked for them- and they have nothing to do with Josh! They have nothing to do with it, it’s your life, you shouldn’t pay rent to live in a _shithole_ , and your family and whatever is just a bunch shit in a shithole! Done! I need to take a fucking breather!” Brendon exclaims, through 3 long and loud breaths. He storms out of the Wendy’s after that, probably to cool off a little, and Ryan follows him wordlessly.

Tyler punches in their order, as he bites down hard on his lip. _Don’t cry at work, don’t cry at work, don’t cry at work._

Suddenly, that line on his wrist is begging to be cut in half, split down the middle. He wants to hurt so bad, it’s like a lurching forward kind of feeling, little spurts of ‘ _you’re the worst person in the world’_ and ‘ _you’re so stupid’_ and ‘ _what he says makes sense but you can’t seem to get it in your head because you’re an idiot’._

“Hey,” Hayley says, softly and quietly, “I know Brendon can be really intense, and, okay, we all can be really intense, but… you deserve better, man. Your life kinda sucks. No offense…”

She passes Tyler a 20 and change when she sees the number appear on the screen. Tyler takes it, gives her back her change in dollar bills. “Yeah.” He says, his voice thick and heavy. “I don’t, um, I mean that sounds nice and all. But it’s not that easy. I can’t just leave them, they’re my family.”

He feels so goddamn stupid. He’s getting advice for his own life from a 17 year old. From a fucking high schooler. From a girl with blue bangs and a cheesey Forever 21 shirt that says ‘Too Tired For You’.

“Yeah. And family sucks. It’s… _shit_ , wait, it’s a quote. Ohhhhhhh, it’s right… BOJACK! Wait, no, but Brendon… okay, I’m going to go along Brendon’s path too. Family? Is a sinkhole. It’s just a trap. It’s just, it’s just manipulation. You shouldn’t do things that make you unhappy for the sake of your family. Because—ohhhhh shit, this is gonna be a quote too. Wait. Uh.”

Tyler waits patiently- he grabs their food when his co-worker sets it on the counter, and he puts everything on a tray for them.

“FAMILY DON’T END WITH BLOOD.” Hayley screams, suddenly. “YES. Supernatural! Okay, yes- your family cares for you, not what you do for them. Your real family, your friends, if you, yeah, your friends, they’re your family. Not the people who try to dictate your life and what you do. Okay?”

Tyler’s friends. More like Tyler’s friend, no ‘s’.

“Okay.” Tyler says to her, but his hands shake as he pushes the tray forward. “Thanks for your advice.”

Hayley takes the tray. But she gives Tyler another pitying look. “Dude. You’re killing me here.”

“Listen, even if I were to- I don’t have any friends who are looking for a roommate. And I don’t have enough money to live on my own. I know my situation is shitty, alright? But I don’t really have another choice, y’know.”

Hayley raises her eyebrows. “Is that all you need? A roommate? Because Tyler, my guy, I know someone looking for a roommate.”

* * *

Pete’s hands are wringed together, pressed together, and he pulls out the best puppy eyes he can manage. “Oh, Patrick, come on! Please! We could fuck every day! And you wouldn’t be in a hurry to get home so that you can sleep and be at work on time, because you’d already be in bed! And we can change the, the second room into an office for you, to do your drawings and shit! It’d be awesome! Move in with meeeeeeeeeee!”

Pete’s in desperate need of a new roommate, and he’s in desperate love with his favorite tattoo artist and best friend and FWB. Only this shit could happen to him.

Patrick throws his hands up in the air, and he steps away from Pete, steps away from the pleading eyes. “Pete, my dick _cannot_ handle that! Okay! Sometimes I just need a goddamn break! There’s going to be nothing left in- just—no! Ask Trohman instead!”

They’re in the backroom together, they’re arguing too loudly. Josh is in the room across the hall, with Travie and William. It’s too loud, and everyone’s going to find out about them.

“I was going to! But I figured I’d give you first dibs.” Pete says, and his shoulders slump a little. “It’d be fun. I have a Wii. Just Dance?”

Patrick shakes his head. “You know I like my peace and quiet. I- I like just being at home and being with Penny. With you, I just- I mean, sex is fucking tiring.”

He slumps down into the couch, and Pete sits next to him. They’re both slouching together, Pete’s hand is on Patrick’s thigh, and they’re both talking to the ceiling. Pete’s back aches, but Patrick’s comfortable, so he stays in that position with him. “It’d be like we were dating,” Patrick says to the tiles on the ceiling. “And I don’t want that. I’m not ready for that. I’m barely keeping this business afloat, it’s too much pressure. I like what we have. Don’t you?”

Pete speaks to the cracks between the tiles- he feels like them. Stuck. “Yeah, I do,” he lies, “But you’re my best friend. I thought it’d be fun. You don’t have to drive over to my place when you want your dick sucked. We could order in pizza on Fridays. It’d be _fun_.”

“Yeah, you keep saying that, but I don’t think it would be fun. We never agree on jackshit. We’d just fight all the time. You know what they say- never date the people you work with.”

“First off, who is ‘they’, and second of all, we’re not dating. We’re just fucking.”

The bell rings on the door, signaling that someone just walked in, so Patrick pulls himself off the couch. He fixes his shirt, adjusts his glasses, and he gives Pete one last look before he sighs, turning on his heel  to go greet whoever is at the door. “Just ask Trohman, okay?”

Pete splays his arms out, drags himself further down the couch, and closes his eyes. “Whatever.”

* * *

Josh is totally over it. Totally. He’s used to getting rejected, used to disappointed eyes, and the stammering words, and the ‘ _It’s not you, it’s me, well, part of it is you, but it’s mostly me’_ , and long story short, Josh is totally over it. It being Tyler. Even though the tattoo design is still in his notebook, even though Josh runs his hands over it every once in a while, and if he closes his eyes, he can still picture it on Tyler’s arm, darkness to counter Tyler’s colorfulness, but Josh’s over it, yeah, definitely.

“Ow, shit,” is what breaks Josh out of his Tyler trance. William Beckett’s on his chair, lying down. Josh is working on his back- it’s this huge piece, angel wings across the top of his back, along his shoulder-blades.

William's hands are being held in Travie’s. “Come on, distract me.” he says, through gritted teeth. “I’m fucking dying here.”

Travie laughs- he’s laughing at Bill, but it’s not malicious or anything. It’s _sweet_. “Bilvy, baby, you get a tattoo on your finger and _then_ come to me about pain.”

William lets out another noise through his teeth, and then goes back to burying his face in his arms. Josh wipes away a little blood and goes back in.

“Ask me why I wanted this shit again.” William says, muffled in his arms, and Josh grins a little as he says, “Dude, calm down. We only have a little bit to go, and then you’re free. Hope you enjoy sleeping on your stomach.”

“Not sleeping tonight. Gonna study.” William sniffles. “No sex for a week. Too much pain.”

Travie ruffles William’s hair. “Alright, _angel_ , whatever you say.”

Love surrounds Josh everywhere. Between Ryan and Brendon and Travie and William and Pete and Patrick, it’s enough to make any sane, single person sick. _Sex_ this, _holding hands_ that.

Travie and William talk for a while as Josh slips back into his work mode, shading and shading and shading and shading in lines, wiping away blood, shading and shading and shading and shading in lines, but then he’s once again interrupted by the bell in the front ringing and “Y’ALL, WE HAVE DIRT. ON TYLER. WHERE’S STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE?”

 _Brendon Urie_. Josh would bring a palm to his forehead but he’s sorta got a tattoo gun in his hands.

William laughs a little into his arm. “ _Strawberry Shortcake_. That’s a good one.”

Travie, though, looks over to Josh with a weird expression on his face. “Tyler? Isn’t that your boy?”

Josh talks to William’s back. “If ‘my boy’ doesn’t text for 2 weeks, is he really ‘my boy’? I’m not bitter, though. Kinda? I don’t know. Not mad at him. Mad at me. But-”

William groans. “Dude _, shut up_. They’re talking about him out there, just go. I think I need a break anyways, I feel like my back is being rubbed raw.”

And suddenly, Josh has never been for thankful for William Beckett and his whiny-ness. Josh cleans up William’s back a little, and he sets his tools down. “I’ll be back in 15, tops.” Josh says, and William and Travie both nod- it’s just that Travie’s is a little more visible.

Josh closes the door behind him, and he walks out back into the lobby- it’s Patrick, Penny (who’s in Ryan’s lap), Ryan, Brendon, and Hayley. And as Josh walks out, Pete follows him.

“Oh look,” Pete says, without a trace of happiness or excitement in his voice, “the gang’s all here.”

“Shut up, emo. You love us.” Brendon says, and Pete makes a face as he slouches into the seat next to Ryan. Penny immediately jumps into his lap, and begins to lick at Pete’s face, and Patrick raises his eyebrows at it- so  maybe Penny and Pete really do get along.

“So… dirt?” Josh asks, wincing at the word a little- teenagers and their lingo. But Hayley beams, as she tosses her book bag into one of the remaining chairs. “I wouldn’t say _dirt_. We just have some useful information because we stalked him at Wendy’s.”

Josh’s eyes practically bulge out of their sockets. “Wait—what the fuck, why would you-“

“Relax.” Brendon says, crossing his arms at the same time as Hayley does. “It was fine. We got some _dirt_.”

Hayley doesn’t even try to fight it- she just goes into detail, from start to finish. The Jason Mraz song, the way that Tyler looked like he was going to cry, the hesitation in his voice, the ‘ _No, I do like him’_ , the shit parents, etc. etc.

And Josh knew that Tyler wasn’t fond of his parents, but wow. Talk about a bunch of assholes.

“Wait,” Pete says, as Hayley finishes her story, “you offered him a room in my apartment?”

Hayley shrugs, and she flips her blonde hair over her shoulders. “Uh… yeah? You need a roommate, right?”

“You need a roommate, right?” Patrick repeats, giving Pete a pointed look. “There’s your roommate. Problem solved!”

But Pete doesn’t want weirdo Donnie Darko Tyler to be his roommate- he wants Patrick. He wants Patrick in the morning with his hatless hair, and his morning breath. Not Tyler being cryptic in his skeleton hoodie.

“Wait, Tyler’s moving in with Pete? Like… he confirmed it, and everything?” Josh asks, and Hayley throws her hands up in the air- a very Patrick move. “GUYS! We’re not focusing on the real issue here! Tyler’s life sucks, and we gotta get him out of that house, and he has to live his life! He became my responsibility this morning after Brendon bitched at him.”

“I didn’t bitch at him,” Brendon clarifies, “I just yelled and cursed a lot, because I’m a passionate person. Right, Ryan?”

Everyone turns to Ryan, who just shrugs. “Yeah sure, babe.”

Hayley goes back to her point- “And I just want him to be happy, because he deserves to be happy. You know, he gave me extra Sweet and Sour Sauce  when I asked? I didn’t even have to pay extra! And he’s Josh’s boo. And we’re a family, and we do crazy shit for our family, and I want Tyler to be part of us too.”

Pete raises a hand. “Uh, excuse me? We’re not a family.”

“Oh, come on,” Patrick says, shaking his head at Pete, “humor her a little. We can be a family. They’re the annoying little siblings that everyone secretly likes even though they’re annoying as shit.”

Josh has a lot of mixed feelings about all of this. About Tyler, who’s moving in with Pete, apparently, and about them all being a family, considering it’s still a little weird that these teenagers wanna hang around them, and about Tyler in general, because Tyler likes him, and Josh still likes Tyler, but they haven’t talked, and Josh hasn’t seen him, and he has mixed feelings about Hayley and Brendon interrogating Tyler like he was some sort of criminal, and also there’s some mixed emotions about Hayley wanting to help Tyler out like Tyler was a case and she was some social worker who still had high hopes and believed she could save lives.

But then, Hayley turns to Josh, and she says, “Oh, and I gave Tyler your number again. So… if you don’t get a text by tonight, let me know.” And lo and behold, on Josh’s way to his car, a couple of hours later, when it's dark outside, when Josh is on his way home-

_614-XXX-XXXX: Hey, Im really sorry if you’re busy right now, but Im at the library, and I wanted to know if you wanted to talk ? I know I fucked up and I want to apologize in person ._

_614-XXX-XXXX: The library 2 blocks down from the Wendys ._

_614-XXX-XXXX: Also, its Tyler . Lol ._

And then, Josh turns on his heel, saves the contact information under the name ‘tyler?!?!’, and makes his way down to the library.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i based brendon's driving off of my grandma's driving except she doesnt listen to grimes - she blasts bhajans :// and neither of us speak hindi but that still doesn't stop her from singing along its too much
> 
> anyways- drama! loves it. leave a comment if u liked plz! i promise there is gonna b more tyler and josh interaction, esp in the next chapter *insert praying emoji*


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> new chapter of stick to you forever or, as i like to call it, the adult version of 500 baskets. when i was writing the jenna and tyler scene in the beginning i felt like this. WAVE of deja vu hit me. and i realized. this is quite LITERALLY adult 500 baskets. oh well. too late now i guess!!!!
> 
> also shoutout to ally moley- every TIM i wrote "rather" i thought of you

Although summer nights are Tyler’s favorite kinds of night, he can settle for the ones in the spring. It’s just a little more cold, and there are no pools and barbecues and cold cans of coke, but he’s got Jenna’s winter gloves on his hands and his skeleton hoodie with the hood up and that’s just as good.

It’s strangely intimate, the position they're in, Tyler could so perfectly imagine a picture of them like this, sitting on the steps of the library, huddled close together, on some sort of relationship goals page. Except, of course, there’s the fact that Tyler’s gay, and Jenna’s a lesbian, and once you add that fact in…

They’re just sitting on the steps together, waiting for Josh.

“Wow,” Jenna says, pulling a strand of hair that fell out of her ponytail behind her ear, “you’re really moving out? Just like that? I mean, I’m proud of you, but… it’s just so sudden, you know? You said that they came in and _schooled_ you?”

Jenna still lives with her parents, but the difference between Jenna’s parents and Tyler’s parents is that they don’t mind, and actually _want_ her to stay home. And Jenna works and she’s studying for her teaching degree, and she manages so many things at once that her parents just welcome her home at the end of the day with open arms. Tyler would agree that she’s handling too many things, but Jenna’s sort of a boss ass bitch (for lack of a better term) who has perfect time management.

Tyler shrugs, in response to her question.

“ _Kinda_ , yeah. The girl, Hayley, told me that Josh’s friend needs a roommate. And I don’t want to live with my parents anymore, and I at least know the guy a little… I mean, only for a couple of seconds but... I dunno. If I don’t take this, like, opportunity right now, who knows when I’m going to feel motivated enough to try again?”

He looks down at his hands, to avoid her gaze. Jenna is super family orientated. She loves her sisters, loves her parents.

“I know that they don’t seem that bad to you, and that I sound crazy right now, but-“ he begins to say, until Jenna interrupts him by placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey, no, you don’t sound crazy. Your parents… they’re just complicated people. They think what they’re doing is right, they think that they’re helping you and moving you in the right direction and they only want what’s best for you, they just don’t go about it in the… _best_  of ways. But you don’t sound crazy, I would leave too… I think. Maybe some space will mend everything?”

He looks back up to her, and gives her another pathetic looking shrug. “Maybe. I dunno. I don’t really care anymore.”

“But you should.” She says firmly, and with a frown. “If you leave, do you think they’ll pay for your classes if you go back to-“

Tyler doesn’t go to college anymore, but there’s still that looming _what are you doing to do about your future_ question that hangs over his head like a dark cloud.

“I don’t think I’m gonna. Go back. I’m still figuring it out.” He says, curling in closer to himself- he rests his elbows on his knees, leans forward a little. “I thought I’d be… y’know, dead by the time I got out of high school. And I’m not. Obviously.”

He’s not _bitter_ about it, that’d be wrong word. But it’s definitely a problem- because now Tyler is here and he has no real goals (or, rather, goals that aren’t impossible) because getting through every day is an accomplishment in and of itself.

Or maybe he’s just lazy, just like what Zack always tells him. ‘ _I always prepare for the next day, for the next week, for the next month_!’ Zack points out at the breakfast table every so often when the subject of _what are you going to do_ comes up. And what does Tyler have planned? To go to work and read and hang out with Jenna before he drives her home and avoid questions like _do you think about your future._

“Don’t talk like that.” Jenna says to him, the words sound like something his mother would say, but the way Jenna says it, reassuring and grounding, doesn’t. “I refuse to let you feel sorry for yourself. I know that you didn’t plan to…” she trails off for a second, “… _y’know_. Be alive right now. But you are. And you deserve to be happy, and if going to college will make you unhappy because you don’t know what you want to do, then… don’t.”

She pauses for a second, and says very delicately, “But I will however agree with the fact that you’re not working at Wendy’s for the rest of your life, not only because it’s gonna fucking suck, but also because you literally can’t survive on minimum wage. And you need to look deep inside and figure out what it is that you love, and pursue that, because then you’d _really_ be wasting your time.”

This is easy- “Music.” Tyler says, with finality. “I love creating music.”

“Oh, geez,” Jenna says, pressing a hand to her forehead, “why couldn’t you love accounting?”

They exchanges glances, before they burst into giggles.

But Tyler’s being totally and completely serious. He loves music. He loves creating music. He loves improvising on the piano in the church, loves recording things for albeit amateur but free GarageBand and mixing it when his parents aren’t home to make fun of him. It can’t be hard, right? Pursing music… making a name out of himself…

Ukulele’s are in, right?

Tyler’s about to respond with something light-hearted again, just to break the depressing mood, just to steer the conversation so that Tyler’s not stuck with feeling like an incompetent loser all night, but when he looks at Jenna, she’s gazing over Tyler’s shoulder with an unreadable expression on her face.

He turns his head to look where she’s looking, and his breath hitches.

It’s dark outside, but Josh’s hair, the pink that reminds Tyler of the intense sunsets he sees at traffic lights on his way down to the library, shines underneath the street lights. He’s wearing a tee-shirt, and Tyler’s eyes drift down to Josh’s tattoo sleeve. It’s sort of the hottest thing in the world to him, which only makes the ache of not getting another one sting a little more.

Josh raises his hand, waves to them, and Tyler barely responds, he’s too busy ogling, until Jenna shoves at him a little. All Tyler wants to do is run his hands over Josh’s face, to thread his fingers through his pink hair, to see if any of it bleeds onto his hands.

“Hi,” Tyler says to him, a little breathlessly as Josh approaches the steps. Josh says ‘hi’ back, and Jenna pulls herself off the steps via the railing.

“Hi, I’m Jenna, Tyler’s best friend.” She says, holding a hand out as she formally introduces herself. “I promise I’m not gonna bother you guys, I’ll be inside. Perks of being the library’s most trusted employee.”

Josh takes her hand into his, and he smiles a little uneasily- nerves. “Oh, uh, okay. I’m Josh.”

“Yeah, I know. Tyler talks about you a lot.” She says, emphasizing the ‘a lot’, and Tyler makes a sound of protest in his throat as he looks over to Josh.

He says quickly, “She’s exaggerating, I don’t talk about you _all the time._ Just… sometimes…”

Jenna makes air quotes behind Tyler’s back, because Tyler _definitely_ babbles about Josh, and she skips up the steps as Josh sits next to Tyler. She unlocks the library, goes back in, and then it’s just Josh and Tyler and the cold spring air.

“Hi,” Tyler says again, and he immediately catches the way that Josh hugs himself when the wind blows. He’s only in a tee-shirt, he probably figured he was going to go home after work, and before Tyler can really think about it, he says, “Do you want my hoodie? You look kinda cold.”

Josh opens his mouth to say ‘no’, but the wind swooshes around them, it smells fresh and crisp the way that the air always does in the spring, so he nods sheepishly. “Actually, yeah. If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind.” Tyler says, unzipping the skeleton hoodie. He’s wearing long sleeves underneath, and he has Jenna’s gloves on, a hot pink that matches Josh’s hair, so it’s not so bad. He looks down at them, curses himself for not remembering to give them back to her, but when he looks up, Josh is looking down at them with an amused expression. “Nice gloves.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Tyler says, with a hint of pink on his cheeks, pulling the gloves off for a moment to give Josh the hoodie.

“Just don’t stretch it out.” he adds, as his eyes drift back down to Josh’s arms, to Josh’s tattoos, the tattoos that don’t look like tattoos right now, since they’re in the dark, but they look like marks that Tyler just wants to feel under his hands. His muscles look so _good_. Tyler’s the lanky type, all skin and bones, but Josh is someone straight out of Tyler’s dreams.

“What do you mean?” Josh asks, totally playing with Tyler, and he grins when Tyler shoves at his shoulders a little.  “Shut _up_ ,” he hisses, “you know what I’m talking about.”

Josh pulls up the hood, and he puts his hands in the pockets. “I’ll just stick it in the dryer for an extra 15 minutes if anything. Thanks.”

“Yeah, no problem.” Tyler says, and then it’s quiet for a couple of seconds. There’s no more filler to talk about, there’s just the elephant in the room. The elephant sitting on the steps with them.

“So… you wanted to talk?” Josh asks, as he angles his knees in a little, so that he’s facing Tyler instead of sitting directly next to him.

“Yeah.” Tyler says, and he tries to shove his hands in his pockets too, but they’re not there. So, he awkwardly places his hands in his lap. “Because I feel like—no, I _do_ owe you an apology. So… I’m sorry.”

Josh hums. “Apology accepted.”

Tyler jerks back a little, blinking at Josh. “Wait, that’s it?”

Maybe it’s because Tyler’s used to explaining himself to the _n_ th degree when he’s home for the smallest things, but this feels way too easy, almost like it’s a trap. Tyler narrows his eyes a little, and he says slowly, “Are you sure? You don’t want me to explain myself?”

“I mean, I believe you,” Josh begins to say, “and if you want to explain it, I’ll listen. But I get it. Parents can be sort of miserable. But… I mean, I wasn’t gonna force you to get another one, you know? I was just really excited, because they look so good on you.”

Josh’s eyes drop down to Tyler’s gloves, where they’re covering Tyler’s tattoo. Tyler pulls the hem of it up a little, so that Josh can see- it’s fully healed.

“Yeah, man, that looks _sick_. And I—well, it doesn’t matter. What _does_ is that I’m not gonna disappointed if you don’t want another one, or if you can’t get another one.” Josh says, and he pulls the hem of the glove back down. “And I’m sorry that Brendon and Hayley barged in at your job, oh my _God_. I swear, I-“

“No, it was a good thing!” Tyler exclaims, as he shakes his head. “It was kind of intimidating but—you heard about the Pete thing, right?”

Before Josh can respond, Tyler continues, “And I know, I promise I know that, it was just a heat of the moment kind of thing. Like… in those movies, when the teenager gets really mad, and he just punches a wall or something? And then he winces and he realizes it was a stupid mistake, but he was caught up in the anger? That was me ripping up your number-“

“ _Ripping_ up my-“

“-because I was just so overwhelmed, and they said no more tattoos, and I’m unhealthily dependent on my parents, and I just freaked out, and no more tattoos meant no more you doing my tattoos, and then I just-“

He mimics ripping up a piece of paper and Josh winces. “Oh. Wow.”

“Yeah.” Tyler says, “And I was too afraid to come back to you and ask for it again, because it’s just so embarrassing, and I thought you’d be over it because you’re you and you can get, like, _anyone_.”

Josh laughs at that- “Yeah, you’re funny.”

“Yeah, I _know_. That doesn’t change the fact that you’re, y’know. Hot.”

It’s awfully forward, but Josh is wearing Tyler’s hoodie, and they’re sitting so close that Tyler can count Josh’s breaths. And when Josh laughs again, Tyler can’t help but smile back.

“So, what do you think about going on a date, if you think I'm...” Josh trails off, shoving his hands impossibly further into Tyler’s hoodie’s pockets. “I’m kind of broke, but we can get hot dogs in the park and like… look at the flowers. Or is that too gay.”

“I’m not really a flower person.” Tyler admits, although he did really like the painting in Josh’s room at the parlor. “Except in your room, or maybe that was because that was the only thing I could focus on before we started listing colors…”

“You don’t like flowers? Dude… that’s fucked.” Josh says, shaking his head, “Flowers are the best. And yeah—hot pink.”

“I mean… they rot and die. There’s not much to really like about them.” Tyler says, before he adds quickly, “Jade.”

“Jade is a color? And yeah but… they’re still pretty. You don’t like roses? Lemon.” Josh asks, and Tyler can already read Josh well, because he’s already seeing wheels turning in Josh’s head- and suddenly he can imagine Josh walking into Wendy’s with a dozen red roses, to match his outfit. That would be so stupid, and Tyler would be so embarrassed, where would he even put them, but he can also imagine taking them from Josh’s hands and leaving them on the counter as he worked and then putting them in a vase in an unfamiliar room in Pete’s apartment when he got home.

“Jade is a color.” Tyler says. “It’s greenish. As for the roses… not really? I don’t know. I don’t really think about flowers. They’re nice, but why would you give someone something that’s gonna die. That’s like… me giving you a goldfish that only has 2 days to live. Ruby red.”

“I had a goldfish once. But yeah, that died too.” Josh sighs. “Rest in peace. But anyways- we don’t have to go to the park, we can watch a movie or something. Donnie Darko?”

“I _love_ Donnie Darko. And you didn’t say a color.”

“Yeah, I could kinda tell.” Josh says, pointing to Tyler’s hoodie, and wow, Tyler didn’t even think about that. “It’s kinda confusing to me, but maybe you could explain it to me if we watch it. Gold.”

“It’s more confusing if you talking _during_ it. It’s super long, but you just have to pay attention during the whole thing, and then it starts to make sense. Or maybe that’s because I’ve seen it, like, a million trillion times. But we could watch Donnie. And then go to the park afterwards. Silver.”

“It’s a date, then?” Josh asks, and Tyler nods. “It’s a date.”

“So we’re dating, then?” Josh asks, and Tyler nods. “Yeah, I think so.”

They glance at each other, and say at the same time, “Peach.”

After a while, after they get past Josh’s favorite movie (it’s Lilo and Stitch- Tyler makes a face, and he says, ‘ _wow, I guess we have really different tastes_ …’) and they go through the whole Pete debacle (‘ _That’s so crazy, man. You living with Pete? Good luck. Hope you have fun listening to the sounds of Pete and Patrick fighting before they start having sex’ ‘Wait, Pete and Patrick are dating?’ ‘I wish that were the case.’_ ), Jenna comes back out, and she waves to the both of them.

“Uh, I really would let you guys sit and talk for another hour, but I kinda have to get home.” She says, tapping her wrist, and when Josh checks the time, he whistles lowly. “9:30. Late night.”

She rolls her eyes playfully. “Yeah, kinda. I have an 8 o’clock class tomorrow morning and traffic is always bad during rush hour. Cue me waking up at 5:30.”

Tyler looks over to Josh, and he points to the pocket of the hoodie. “Can I get…” he trails off, and Josh goes to unzip the hoodie, “Oh, yeah, sorry, I-”

“No, I just need the keys. You can keep the hoodie, I know it’s a long walk back.” Tyler says, and he swears he can see Jenna’s smirk from where she’s standing. And Josh stammers a little as he pulls Tyler’s car keys out of his pocket, fumbling over his words, “Oh, right” and “Really, it’s not that bad,”

But Tyler shakes his head. “Nah, it’s okay. It looks good on you, I have another one anyways. Or I can just get it back the next time I see you?”

“Yeah,” Josh says, and this time it’s his turn to be breathless. “Okay. Tomorrow? Or-“

Tyler gets up, and so Josh gets up too. Jenna just watches on, a hand covering her mouth to hide her smile because this is so awkward and cheesey.

“Whenever. You can always walk in, and if I’m busy then you can always, like, hang out with Penny or with Pete… if he’s not in the back with Patrick.”

“Okay." Tyler says, because there's nothing left to say except their goodbyes

"Um… bye…?” Tyler says/asks after there's a silence. And Josh blinks at him as he says “…Bye.”

They stand across from each other, not really sure what to do. Do they kiss? Do they hug? Do they just walk away? 

Jenna’s suffering from second hand embarrassment so bad. It _really_ shouldn’t be this difficult.

Josh opts for a wave, he raises his arm, but Tyler takes that as a sign that he wanted to hug, so he comes closer and just. Hugs Josh. Josh makes a face before he even realizes what’s happening, but he wraps his arms around Tyler when he feels Tyler's hair tickle his jaw, and he catches Jenna’s horrified expression, and yeah, Josh is kinda horrified too, and Tyler lets go before Josh does, and then Tyler has to sort of pry himself away.

They stare at each other after they separate, and an awkward bubble of laughter crawls its way up Tyler’s throat. “Okay, that was kinda horrible.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.” Josh says, trying not to laugh, but upon seeing Tyler laugh, he laughs too. “Do you wanna try that again?” He asks, and Tyler nods. “Yeah, let me just-“

Tyler cups Josh’s face instead, and oh, Josh knows how to do _this_. They kiss for a second, nothing monumental or amazing, it’s a goodbye kiss after the first unofficial date, and Josh smiles when Tyler pulls away. “Better?” Tyler asks, and Josh grins. “Way better.”

* * *

When Tyler pulls into the driveway at 9:57, he knows he’s going to walk into a shit-show. His parents are going to ask if Tyler’s been doing drugs, if he got another tattoo, if he was at a club (on a Thursday night, yeah, okay), and then Tyler’s going to be pissed and say something stupid, and then Zack is going to come downstairs and look smug and add something like, ‘ _Mom, I’ve never done drugs before, or had sex, or have drank alcohol, and, for a matter of fact, never done anything fun in my entire life_ ’, and…

It’s just going to be a mess.

He turns the radio off as he unbuckles his seat-belt, and he sits for a minute, letting the night marinate in his head. It was a baby kiss, but it was a _kiss_. And they’re going on a date and they’re going to watch _Donnie Darko_. He looks at his tattoo before he opens the car door, he runs his thumb over it, and he sighs happily. _Josh_.

When he steps inside the house, he attempts to bee-line straight to his room. It’s right up the stairs in front of the door, maybe it’s late enough for his parents to have gone to bed, but everyone is sitting on the couch, watching ‘The Big Bang Theory’. Ugh. Gross.

His mother whips around at the sound of the door opening, and Tyler winces when she shrieks, “Tyler, where have you been?!”

Zack, sitting next to her, turns and gives Tyler a sinister looking grin. Maddy looks down at her lap, at her hands, and doesn’t look back at Tyler when he glances at her.

“I was with Jenna.” Tyler says, stepping into the living room with hesitation. “She needed help stacking some books after some little kids knocked down a whole row, and then she was talking about her classes, and we lost track of time, and then I had to give her a ride. Sorry, I won’t let it happen again.”

His father opens his mouth to yell, but Tyler’s mother stops him from saying anything by pressing a hand on his arm. “Wait. You’ve been spending time with _Jenna_?”

Tyler blinks. “Yeah… she’s my friend… you know that…”

“No, no, sweetie, I mean… you’ve been spending a lot of time with her lately,” she begins to say, and she looks over to her husband with a fond expression, before she looks back to Tyler. “Is there anything you want to tell us?”

Tyler doesn’t get it just yet. “About Jenna? I mean, not really? She got a new haircut, but-“

“OH MY GOOOOODDDD.” Zack says, or, rather, screams, “YOU IDIOT. SHE WANTS TO KNOW IF YOU GUYS ARE DATING.”

“Am I— _no_! I’m gay. Jenna’s gay. We’re just _friends_. Mom, you know this, we’re just friends.”

Tyler came out years ago- his parents and siblings definitely know that he’s gay. He doesn’t understand why his parents get their hopes up like this.

His mother looks down at her hands, a similar action to Maddy’s. “I know, Tyler, but you can’t blame me for hoping.”

 _Yes, I can!_ Tyler wants to scream. _I’ll never want to date Jenna, and she’ll never want to date me!_

His father just looks uncomfortable. There’s nothing Tyler’s father hates more than Tyler discussing sexuality. He’d rather let Tyler never share details about his dating life than spare his own feelings for 2 seconds. His mother just likes to deny it, and his siblings, Maddy aside, mostly make fun of him. Jay, because he’s a stupid 11 year old who thinks ‘gay’ is a funny word, and Zack because he’s just a plain textbook homophobe. Tyler's not sure how Maddy feels about it. She's usually quiet. 

“Mom,” Tyler tries to say, and his mother shakes her head. “No, Tyler, I—I pray every night, you know?” she murmurs, and Tyler has to hold back a groan.

“I pray every night for God to fix this. Every Sunday, it’s the first thing I ask for.” she continues, and Tyler can hear the tears in her voice. She’s still looking at her hands, and Tyler’s glad- he doesn’t think he can deal with seeing tears spill down her cheeks as she tells him that she prays that Tyler could change. “I- I- I mean, why can’t you try it? For us? You and Jenna. Just to see what it’s like. Maybe you just haven’t met the right girl yet. Remember when you had a crush on… oh, what’s her name? In the 1th grade?”

“Mom,” Tyler cries, exasperated, “I was 6 years old.”

Zack pipes up from his spot on the couch- he’s lounging, like he’s watching an episode of his favorite show- “Oh, come on, Tyler. You already disappoint Mom and Dad enough. Why can’t you just try it? It’s not like you’ve ever had a boyfriend.”

Tyler sees fire behind his eyelids when he blinks. Why does he let Zack get to him like this? “ _I’ve_ never had a boyfriend?”

His mother looks up to him, and her husband wraps an arm around her shoulder, to comfort her. “You’ve never talked about… about your relationships. You don’t tell us anything.”

“Because you don’t want to hear it!” Tyler fumes, “I’ve dated men. I’ve _slept_ with men _,_ I've _-"_

“Tyler, that’s enough.” His father says in a loud, and firm voice. His mother lets out a sob. Tyler brings a hand to his head. What was he going to do? Describe in great and deep detail about the time that he sucked a dick on the very couch they’re sitting on?

“I don’t know what you guys want from me,” Tyler says, before he backtracks a little, because no, actually, he knows exactly what they want from him, “I’m not straight, and Jenna’s not straight, and I’ll never _be_ straight, and she will never be straight. We’re _friends_.”

And Tyler has thought about Hayley’s words all day. She said ‘ _You shouldn’t do things that make you unhappy for the sake of your family_ ’. She said ‘ _Your family is supposed to care for you, not what you do for them_ ’.

Even Brendon and his scarily loud voice stuck around, words about how he shouldn’t pay rent to live somewhere he’s not happy and where he’s not accepted, somewhere where he’s not home.

And as Tyler watches as his mother cries, sniffling as she tells Tyler that she prays every single night for things to be different, that God was punishing her, that she was cursed, that she doesn’t want her child to be ‘the gay one’, as he watches his father try to comfort her, as he sees tears start to form in Maddy’s eyes, as Jay squirms away from his mother when she clings to him, as Zack looks over to Tyler with his sort of half-smirk plastered on his face and as he shakes his head…

Tyler realizes that he really has to leave.

* * *

Bacon sizzles in the pan on the stove as Pete whisks up some eggs in a bowl.

“ _I want your love_ , _love, love, love, I want your love,_ ” Patrick and Pete sing together- or at least in Pete’s head. Patrick’s in the ( _PETE’S_ ) shower, singing on the top of his lungs to Lady Gaga, and Pete’s outside in the kitchen, making breakfast, and singing under his breath.

“ _You know that I want you_ ,” they sing,

“ _And you know that I need you_ ,” they sing,

“ _I want it bad_ ,” they sing,

“ _Your bad romance_ ,” they sing,

“ _I want your love and I want your revenge_ ,” they sing,

“ _You and me could write a bad romance_ ,” they sing.

It’s kind of sad, singing a duet with someone who can’t even hear him. He cuts up some bell peppers and shallot, working mindlessly as he thinks about Patrick and their _bad romance_. How is it that Pete’s out here making breakfast for the both of them, how is it that Patrick’s in his shower, how is it that Patrick brought a change of clothes, how is it that they’re going to go to work together because they ended up falling into bed again and they’re _not_ dating?

Life would be a lot easier if Pete just admitted his feelings.

He cuts extra hard into an onion, dicing out his frustrations. _Stupid Patrick, stupid me, stupid Patrick’s amazing singing voice, stupid me, stupid me._

He dumps all of his vegetables into the bowl with the eggs, and he stands on his tippy-toes to grab the black pepper and salt from inside the cabinet to put into the bowl as well, but then the doorbell rings, and that sort of pulls Pete out of his cooking/Patrick/Lady Gaga trance.

He whips around to look over at the door, and he glances down at himself. He’s not really… wearing clothes. Just a ratty robe that doesn’t do anything to really cover him. It’s thin and purple, and long story short, it’s nothing Pete wants to answer the doorbell in.

The doorbell rings again, and Pete yells out, “UH, HOLD ON,” as he sprints to turn the stove off. He doesn’t even glance at who’s outside through the peephole, he just runs past the door as it rings, “DUDE, I SAID HOLD ON!”, shoves his bedroom door open, rummages through his drawers, and he hops from one foot to the other as he puts the first pair of boxers he saw on. He hops past the bathroom door, where Patrick’s still singing his lungs out _(“You can call when you want but there’s no one home and you’re not gonna reach my telephone cause I’m out in the club and I’m sippin’ that bubb, and you’re not gonna reach my telephone,”),_ and by the time he gets to the door, he looks more disheveled than he did when the doorbell just started ringing. The robe is undone, his red boxers are lopsided on his hips, and his chest heaves when he swings the door open. God Himself could be outside the door, and Pete would greet Him in his ratty robe and his exposed shirtless chest and his ugly Superman boxers. And probably punch Him in the face.

“Hey, _asshole_ , didn’t you hear-“

Tyler Joseph sans Donnie Darko hoodie blinks at him.

Pete pauses in the middle of his sentence.

“Sorry,” Tyler says after a moment, shifting from one foot to the other, “I didn’t, um, hear anything out here. I don’t, uh, have your number, but Hayley gave me your address yesterday and she told me that you don’t leave till 8, and she told me that I could come over whenever, although I _realize_ now that she was just saying that to say that and that she didn’t really talk to you, and you probably don’t want me here right now. I’ll just go.”

“Dude, the fuck?” Pete asks, not even entirely sure how to respond to Tyler. “You’re already here, just come in.”

Pete’s definitely counting backwards from 10 in his head. He knew that giving Hayley his address so that she could order him something from Amazon was a mistake. Also- Amazon is a mistake in and of itself, and everyone should buy from small businesses.

Tyler steps into the apartment, with his hands balled into his fists inside of his hoodie pocket. This hoodie is new, or at least new to Pete. “Nice hoodie. Where’s the Donnie one?” Pete asks, as he tries to discretely fix his boxers so that they actually sit right. 

“The _Donnie_ \- uh, it’s. Not in commission.” Tyler says, looking down the hall, where Patrick’s _still_ belting Lady Gaga songs in the shower. Pete’s not even sure what takes Patrick so damn long- there’s only so much surface to clean before you’re just wasting water.

“Oh. Okay.” Pete says, before he sighs, “That’s Patrick in there, sorry he’s so fucking loud, don’t mind him. So, you wanted to check the place out?”

Tyler nods, still not looking at Pete. He’s glancing around the space- it’s super small, and it’s covered head to toe with Pete’s stuff, weird posters and shelves packed with books, and it’s kind of a pigsty, but Tyler can imagine himself chilling on the couch, making himself bacon on the stove.

“You want some bacon?” Pete asks, following Tyler’s line of vision, and Tyler shakes his head politely. “I’m good, thanks. I feel really bad for barging in, I’m a total idiot for believing her.”

“Nah, that’s alright,” Pete waves him off, “Brendon and Hayley, they're always up to something. If I didn’t already have younger siblings I would have probably strangled one of them. Anyways- let me show you the room before Patrick gets out of the shower and freaks out.”

“Freaks out at _me_?” Tyler asks, as Pete leads him down the hallway. “Edge of Glory” is in full session.

“More like freaks out that someone heard him singing to Lady Gaga.”  “Oh.”

If Pete’s being totally and completely honest, he’s not sure what Josh sees in Tyler. Not only because Pete prefers Patrick over any guy, prefers Patrick’s baseball hats and Patrick’s hips and Patrick’s way of slipping into conversation so gracefully, like talking is the easiest thing in the world, but because Tyler is just plain weird. Even the way he walks is strange to Pete. He looks almost mechanical. And everything that comes out of his mouth just bleeds awkward. He’s nice enough but… Pete just doesn’t get it.

But that doesn’t really matter- if he’ll pay rent and not cause Pete to get kicked out of his home, he would gladly live with him. Pete’s lived with lots of questionable people, Joe Trohman included. Well, Joe would mostly just have sex on the couch while Pete was home. And that was the worst.

Pete wonders what Patrick’s weird quirk would be, but the answer is already there for him: loud singing in the shower. Patrick says it's good for warming up his voice, but Pete's not sure what he's warming his voice up for, since he's a tattoo artist.

The free room is the one next to Pete’s, and it’s all cleared out. It’s not that big, but there’s already a bedframe there and a desk from where Pete’s old roommate left it, to go live with her girlfriend. “Oh wow,” Tyler says, surprised, “fully furnished and everything.”

“Yup. Perks of a long term relationship: you only need one bed.” Pete says, but then he adds as an afterthought, “Although, I’m not exactly sure why she took the mattress with her. But whatever, that’s beside the point. You like? I know it’s small, but… it’s homey. And you can watch the sunrise from the window.”

He can’t really read Tyler’s facial expressions- he just looks around the room, like he’s trying to imagine himself in here. He walks over to the window as Patrick continues to provide them with music, and he immediately turns to Pete once he glances outside. “I’ll take it.”

“Oh shit, really? Alright, awesome!” says Pete, and when he walks over to where Tyler is, and he understands why Tyler immediately said yes. The sunrise looks great from the window- there are no trees blocking the view, it’s just the open sky and the streets down below. “You should see the view during sunset on the balcony. Granted, there’s more of a chance the neighbors are gonna try to talk to you, and there are some trees, but it’s still rad.”

They spend the next few minutes discussing rent (Tyler looks unfazed at how much it is- which is surprising. Would Tyler really pay that much rent to live at _home_?), when Tyler could move in, etc. But they’re so deep in conversation that they don’t even notice that Patrick had stopped singing.

“Okay, wait, this is gonna be a weird question,” Tyler says, and Pete almost says, “Weird? For you?” but he doesn’t. He instead says, “Shoot.”

“I mean… the walls are thin, right?” Tyler asks, and Pete’s eyes widen the slightest bit _. Okay, Tyler_ , he thinks, _get ittttttt_.

“Yeah, kinda.” Pete replies, and Tyler hums. “Well, I kinda record music sometimes, and I work during the day, so… would it bother you guys if I sang and played the piano and ukulele? Well, not piano, I have a keyboard but it's loud enough…”

“I once had a roommate who would play drums in the middle of—oh shit, that was Josh! Anyways, long story short, I can deal with it. And there’s no ‘you guys’, Patrick doesn’t-“

Pete suddenly pauses. “Oh shit… _Patrick_.”

“Wait, Josh plays the drums?” Tyler wonders out-loud, and he follows Pete out into the hallway  when Pete gets up. The bathroom door opens just as Pete approaches it, and for a moment, Patrick doesn’t even notice Tyler, because he smiles at Pete and says, “You look hot. I like red on you.”

And then they kiss, but Patrick sees Tyler when he pulls away, and he immediately jumps back, clutching his white towel closer to his body. “ _What in the fuck_ -“

“He just stopped by! To check out the room. I swear, he only heard, like, half of ‘Telephone’ and ‘Edge of Glory’, and the little bit of ‘Hey Girl’, but that’s it!” Pete says, but he can’t stop himself from laughing by the end of the sentence.

Patrick just frowns. “You’re such an asshole, you should have told me!”

Pete shrugs, and he holds his hands up to surrender. “Oops? Come on, it’s not so bad. Tyler’s a singer, right?”

“Uh. Yeah. Kinda. I don’t really want to be in the middle of this?”

Patrick looks like he wants to scream, but he looks between Pete and Tyler and he sighs in defeat instead. “Oh well. What’s done is done. I hope I sounded good at least?”

A small smile appears on Patrick's face as Tyler nods, salvaging Pete’s situation for him. “Totally. Not as good as Beyoncé, but your bit for her was awesome. I’d love to hear your rendition of ‘Applause’”

 _Okay_ , Pete thinks pleasantly, _maybe Tyler isn’t that bad. Patrick is literally naked minus a towel and he doesn’t even mind Tyler being over._

Patrick laughs, shaking his head, “I hate ARTPOP, but that one _is_ pretty catchy. Are you staying for breakfast?”

By the time that Patrick comes back into the kitchen, fully dressed and not clad in a towel, breakfast is on the table. Tyler’s sitting on one of the stools, swinging his feet as he takes a bite of Pete’s eggs (Eggs that are way better than his mother’s- Pete puts so much stuff in them.). Penny, who had been asleep the whole time, brushes against Tyler’s feet as she makes way over to Patrick. Pete, who’s still shirtless, spills too strong coffee over himself.

Tyler can totally see himself living here. Can imagine Josh and his loud drums in Tyler’s room, can imagine sitting by the window with a bowl of Fruit Loops watching the sunrise, can imagine watching Donnie Darko on the TV in the living room that’s currently showing a music channel that only Patrick’s singing along to.

* * *

When Pete and Patrick walk into work, full with eggs and bacon and toast and coffee, they walk into a guy in a skeleton hoodie with the hood up jamming out to a Modest Mouse song as he swept the floors.

“Tyler, don’t you have work?” Pete calls out as he swings the front door open, and Tyler turns around, and, yeah, no, that’s _Josh_.

“Wha?” Josh asks loudly, not hearing Pete over how loud the music is. “Turn the music off?”

Pete and Patrick exchange a look, one that reads ‘ _So **that’s** where Tyler’s hoodie went’_ , and they say at the same time, grinning like idiots, “Nothing!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pleaaaaaase comment if you liked!!! not to.. like guilt anyone into commenting but it's literally my main source of inspiration. because i love writing but also i feel so unmotivated if ppl don't comment cause then i feel like no one would miss it if i didn't update for a week or two and then knowing me i'd just delete the entire thing cause im impulsive like that and would think that no one liked it. yeah. so comment! please!! even if you want to complain about it!! even if it's 2 words!! cause at least i get some feedback ya know? otherwise i just feel like i write for hours and hours for nothing. well, not NOTHING but idk it just sucks to see the hit count go up and not get any feedback. cause then im like "no one likes it. im a horrible writer. everything is bad!"
> 
> that being said- THANK YOU SOOOOOOOOO MUCH to everyone who has commented!!!!! it really means the world to me and i appreciate it so much :') <33333


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAAAAAAAAA thank you guys so much for all of the comments and nice words that you guys left on the last chapter! im seriously not exaggerating when i say that it means everything to me :'( you guys r the best and the best dont mess

A week later, and Josh and Tyler still haven’t gone out on their date.

“What the hell are you waiting for? A sign?” Hayley asked, before flicking Josh on the nose with her finger. “There’s your sign!”

“Someone _likes_ you,” Pete stressed, over a bowl of soup at the Mom-and-Daughter panini place across the parlor, “someone genuinely likes you for you and not just, like, your body and whatever. Who cares if you both are busy? It doesn’t have to be anything special. Well, Patrick and I aren’t dating, duh, definitely not, but one time we hung out in his car… and it was really nice, and it wasn’t a date! It wasn’t a date, we’re not dating, definitely not, but it _felt_ like date. We had each other. That’s all that really fuckin’ matters. But we’re not dating. Let’s just be _clear_ here.”

“Your first date doesn’t have to be anything special. I mean, unless you don’t want your relationship to last, of course.” Brendon said, with his arm draped over Ryan’s shoulder. “Ryan and I watched Moulin Rouge at his house and we quoted it word for word, and then we ate zucchini noodles, and then he ate me out.”

“Don’t listen to Brendon,” Ryan sighed, holding the hand that was attached the arm around his shoulder, “you don’t _have_ to eat him out on the first date.”

“You guys are just being stupid.” Travie said, before he dropped Izzy off to go paint outside, “Go buy a slice of pizza when you’re both on your breaks. It’s not that deep, man.”

“ _But I want it to be special_.” Josh replied back, to everyone. Because- well, it was true. He did want it to be special, because Tyler was special, and worth more than a greasy slice of pizza.

And then a week full of advice and ‘ _It doesn’t matter!_ ’ flew by before Josh even realized it.

“We’ve been thinking about our first date so much, but I think it’s already happened. Like… 6 times.” Tyler says, before he takes a sip out of his cherry slurpee on Friday night. They’re drinking slush from the 7-11 and sitting in Tyler's car a block away from Josh's apartment complex with the heat turned off. Tyler's car is weird- brand new radio in an old car, leather seating, condoms in the glove compartment (Josh was looking for tissues, Tyler's face turned the most hilarious and adorable shade of red, kind of like the red stain on his teeth from the drink), the smell of Tyler in general.  

“Yeah, but those aren’t really dates, are they? We’re just sitting and talking.” Josh says, taking a sip out of _his_ slurpee- blue raspberry. “Dates are like… I dunno.”

“ _Just sitting and talking_. Plus a shit-ton of money.” Tyler answers for him, grinning. His lips look so inviting, blood red like he’s wearing lipstick, that Josh leans over and just kisses him. Tyler’s fingers curl around his cup when he kisses back, and when he opens his mouth, lets Josh in, he tastes _blue_. Blue raspberry is so romantic- it's a made up flavor that tastes like nothing but blue personified. Or, rather, fruit-i-fied. Tyler could taste blue raspberry all day. 

“Also,” Tyler adds in a hoarse voice, just as they pull away, “I don’t think people kiss like that before their first date. It’s not _classy_.”

“We’re rebels.” Josh says easily, and Tyler rolls his eyes playfully, shifting back into his seat. He slurps loudly on the slushie, a very clear ‘ _Whatever you say’_.

It’s quiet for a minute or two, save for the sound of the two of them slurping on their drinks, it’d only be awkward if one of them were doing it, but it’s the both of them, and it’s hard to ‘politely’ sip a slurpee, and save for the sound of honking cars and loud bass. Josh isn’t really cheesey in the sense of ‘love’, and he’s only known Tyler for a little while, and he’s not in love, but everything about this is picturesque. Tyler’s red mouth, the way that his skin glows, there’s a shadow of purple from the light on a store building, the way that the car is cold and his fingers are cold, but it smells like summer in Tyler’s car. Sweet sweat, kinda salty like the ocean, it smells like the cicadas that fucking scream all night. And sound doesn’t have a smell.

“So, how’s moving out going?” Josh asks, just as Tyler sets his drink in the cup holder. He flashes Josh a little look, ‘ _Dude, come on’_ , and his hands curl and uncurl around the steering wheel as he talks, “I dunno. Next month is close, I still haven’t told them, but I’ve started slowly packing my shit, changing my billing address, and, like, my keyboard’s in the back, I’m gonna drop it off by Pete tonight. I was thinking about just leaving. Like, not even telling them. And then I realized that’s only in, like, soap operas. I have to, um, rip the bandaid off, but I’m stalling.”

“I could help.” Josh offers, pretty weakly, “Y’know, if you wanted to just up and leave. I could help carry down your mattress, fight off your asshole parents if they tried to stop you.”

“They wouldn’t try to stop me.” Tyler says, this is easy, “Or, no, they would try to stop me because they want rent money. I might need help with the mattress though. You’re strong, right?”

Tyler reaches over, feels up Josh’s arm, and Josh laughs as Tyler hands run over his muscles, underneath the skeleton hoodie that he’s still wearing. He washes it, he’s not… like, gross, and it’s still a little small on him, but it’s cozy. “Dude, stop, that _tickles_. And yeah, I’m _definitely_ strong. You could sit back with some lemonade, I’d do all the work.”

“Yeah, sure, I’ll just hang on the couch as you bring down all of my stuff. If my parents come home… ‘who’s this strange guy with the tattoo sleeve doing in my house, and why is he carrying a huge mattress’”

“Would you tell them?” Josh asks, and it’s not in a serious voice, they’re still somewhat joking with each other, but would Tyler tell his parents about them, about how they're dating? Or would Tyler brush him off to the side, pretend like they’re just friends when it feels like so much more.

“Tell them about you? I don’t know. Do you want me to?” Tyler asks, staring at Josh with his wide eyes, unblinking and raw and real, they’re truly the windows to his soul, because Josh can practically see question marks swimming around in the chocolate of his eyes.

“Do I-- I don’t know. I think that’s more your choice than mine.”

Tyler doesn’t give him an answer- it hangs in the air like a balloon, and it pops with a loud sound that makes Josh wince when Tyler turns the radio back on. (Or maybe it was just the sound of the radio.)

Josh glances at the time- it’s late, and Tyler has to go home. _Josh_  has to go home.

He tries to not be disappointed at the lack of an answer. They slip back into conversation after a moment, about Jenna, about how she wants to come in one day for a tattoo, a blue butterfly on the back of her neck, but all Josh can think of is Tyler, glass of cool pink lemonade in his hands, saying in a calm voice, ‘He’s just a friend.’

It’s irrational. It’s stupid.

They haven’t even gone a first date yet, for crying out loud.

* * *

Between the ‘Unloveable’ tattoo (yes, the incorrect spelling and everything) and this one, the outro to ‘There is a light that never goes out’, it’d be an understatement to say that Pete loved Morrissey.

Pete loves Morrissey. _Loves_.

“This really hurts. Like, more than usual.” Pete says, with his free arm swung over his eyes and his feet planted firmly against the reclined parlor chair. His other arm is currently being mutilated via Patrick’s tattoo gun.

Patrick’s barely through the outline of the book, nevertheless the actual lyrics that Pete wants, but Patrick’s used to Pete’s complaining, used to the gnashing of teeth and the legitimate tears that Pete swears never happened. Pete’s already up to the feet on the chair, the digging of his heels into the material, and the helpless moans.

“I don’t know what you want me to do, _Princess_.” Patrick says, looking for a moment to grin at Pete, to catch Pete’s pissed off expression. And that he does- Pete gives him a signature glare with the bared teeth. “Shut up, you’ve never even gotten a tattoo, you don’t _get_ it.”

“Yeah, I know, but I offered you pain killers and you didn’t take any, so… shut up. Let me work.” Patrick says, his voice hard and demanding, and Pete shuts up for a moment, but then Patrick rubs Pete’s arm a little with his ‘free hand’, the hand holding Pete’s arm down, and it’s unpleasant, rubber against the hair on his arm, but it’s comforting, Patrick’s so warm, so Pete continues.

“You don’t think this is lame, right? I mean, it’s a good song to get, right?” Pete asks, just as Patrick finishes the outline. He wipes little droplets of blood away, and he’s about to start on the lyrics, in his own handwriting since Pete didn’t want anything specific, but Pete makes a soft sound in his throat, so Patrick sets the machine down.

“Yeah, better than Unloveable. Which you’re not.” Patrick says, and Pete scoffs, shaking his head. “Yeah, right. What’s there to love?”

“You make really good eggs.” Patrick points out, and okay, yeah, Pete makes good eggs. “They’re really seasoned, and they taste like sex in my mouth. I mean, your cum is a lot… okay, I’m just gonna… stop talking.” Patrick pulls his gloves off, and when he turns back around to face Pete, his face is red.

“A lot what?” Pete asks, holding his hand out. Patrick takes it, let’s Pete drag him closer, and they kiss, Pete’s free arm around Patrick’s neck, Patrick’s hands on either sides of Pete’s head. Their kisses are a lot softer nowadays- Patrick doesn’t know how to feel about that.

Patrick likes the soft kisses, but he’s better at the biting ones. He’s not much of a loving person- he’s ice cold. His heart branches out to Penny and the tattoo shop and his family, and then… it just sorta stops.

“A lot less eggy.” Patrick rolls his eyes, pulls away even when Pete pulls him closer. “And if you must know, I actually like this tattoo better. It’s a better song, a lot more… I don’t know. You?”

“Me?” Pete asks, and Patrick shrugs. He reaches over, pulls another pair of latex gloves out of a container. “Yeah, the lyrics, I mean. It’s very… you. Like, the one you’re getting, ‘There is a light that never goes out’, yeah, that’s _you_.”

“Oh.” Pete says, with a frown. “Thanks?”

“It’s not a compliment, it’s not anything, I’m just _saying_ , it reminds me of you. Like, when I listen to that song, I see you. Does that make sense?”

Pete’s just sort of stuck on Patrick listening to that song and picturing him. _And if a double decker bus crashes into us / To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die_

**_?!?!?!?!?!_ **

_And in the darkened underpass / I thought oh God, my chance has come at last / But then a strange fear gripped me and I just couldn’t ask_

**_…?!?!?!?!?!_ **

“Oh.” Pete says again, with wide eyes. God, he’s in love.

Patrick catches the look in Pete’s eyes, notices how still the air has become, and he ducks his head. “Sorry, that was stupid. Should I continue with-“

“Okay, I have a question.” Pete says, sitting up in his seat, letting his legs fall back down. Patrick sits next to them, on the edge of the seat, which is kinda fitting for the mood he’s in.

_Don’t let Pete be in love, Don’t let Pete be in love, Don’t let Pete be in love._

Is that selfish? Thinking someone is in love with you?

Patrick swallows on air. The way that Pete looks at him sometimes…

The way that Pete pulls him close after they kiss.

“Shoot.” Patrick says, staring down at his sneakers.

“Hypothetically…. And we’re speaking in hypothetics here,” Pete begins, and Patrick groans, losing his patience, “Dude, just get to the _fucking_ point,” “ _Hypothetically_ … if I were to see someone else, would you care?”

There’s that stillness again. Patrick’s staring at his sneakers, Pete’s staring at the top of Patrick’s head. 

“I don’t know.” Patrick says, mostly to fill some of that quietness in, it's like filling in the background in a coloring book- not getting to the good stuff. “Not really? I mean, I wouldn’t want to continue it, but—I mean, we’re just having sex, we’re not dating and I don’t, whatever, no, I don’t care.”

“Are you serious?” Pete asks, _why are his eyes so wide and so beautiful, soft and warm like caramel on an ice cream sundae_ , “You wouldn’t? So I could just call all of this off and you wouldn’t care? You’d let me see someone else?”

“I don’t think I have to ‘let’ you do anything, you’re your own person! I—this is so ridiculous! Pete, we’re not dating-“

“I _know_ -“

“-and that’s the thing, you know, we’re just having sex and therefore I’m not, I’m not treating this like it’s a relationship. You can call it off, I can get-- it-- somewhere else. Why, _are_ you seeing someone?”

“What?! No! That’s- It’s a _hypothetical_ question. Do you know what that means?”

“Yes, I know what that means,” Patrick says, gritted teeth and angry eyes and all, “I’m not an idiot, it’s just the way you say things. _God_.”

“Okay, fine!” Pete huffs out, and he makes an attempt to cross his arms, but Patrick grabs the arm that he was just working on, and presses it down against the chair. “Don’t do that, you’re gonna hurt yourself.”

“Let me! I’m my own person, right?!”

 _This_. This is what drives Patrick absolutely fucking crazy about Pete. The way that he complains about Hayley and Brendon when he acts just like them- like a moody teenager. Patrick needs someone stable. Someone he can rely on, someone to come home to and tell all of his problems to, someone who can rant to him and he can listen and he won’t feel like pulling his hair out about hearing the same shit, ‘ _We gotta save small businesses_!’. He needs someone to come home to that will listen to his problems. He doesn’t need someone who _is_ the problem.

“Don’t be stupid.” Patrick says, his hand still on Pete’s arm, “I’m just confused on what you want me to feel, because-“

“I just,” Pete closes his eyes, winces like he’s in pain, “wish you would care. Even a little bit. We’re friends, we fucking, we fucking do shit together, you know me and my body and the way that I work more than anyone. I just wish you would feel something. Maybe it’s just the pain from this fuckin’ tattoo getting to me.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Patrick echoes. “It’s just- why would I care? If you call it off, we’ll still be friends, we’ll still be co-workers, when we hang out you won’t be sticking your dick in me. That’s it, you know.”

"I know." Pete says, with a frown. "I know."

They stare at other for another second, just basking in the silence. What are they supposed to do now?

“Do you want to—I mean, are you. Do you want to date me?” Patrick asks, quiet, and his eyes beg Pete with wringed hands, ‘ _please say no, please say no_ ’.

“No.” Pete says, through a laugh. “Dude, you drool like a motherfucker. And you’re too soft on me. Need someone who’ll really fuck me up.”

Things shift in an instant. Patrick actually laughs for real, nothing like the noise that Pete just made while he lied through his teeth, and he leans up, nips Pete’s shoulder with his teeth, kisses over the spot, says in a husky voice, one that makes Pete prop his feet back up, dig his heels into the chair, “Yeah, that can be arranged.”

And things are good again.

 _Normal_.

For them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK SO i am! so sorry about this chapter! just in general! im so sorry that it's late (i had like the craziest week last week like i had rehearsals on monday and wednesday until 7:30 after school and then i missed my nap and my period just kinda makes me miserable and then i had the concert on thursday and then on tuesday i wrote the first part and then on friday THE GET DOWN PART 2 came out and i had to watch it (all!) and then YESTERDAY i had a college visit and just thinking about the future and about college and dorming costs and the fact that if i dont dorm imma have to drive a whole hour makes me super stressed and THEN today i wrote the last part and I KNOW i promised u guys stuff and the next section happens on another day SO i was like.
> 
> let me just post what i have now so im not leaving you guys hanging for another day or two. and since the next part happens on another day, just put that into a new chapter and throw all of my energy into that.
> 
> so yeah! thanks 4 sticking around for this pile of actual shit haha! im a huge mess! this is a joshler and peterick fic yet! there seems to be no plot for the joshler at all! i peaked while writing 500 baskets! woooo! i love to die!
> 
> but really- thanks for continuing to read :-) i know that im actually shit at posting and writing in general and i know that my writing style leaves a lot to be desired but it means everythin 2 me that people are reading it in general.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> biggest shoutout to alyssa ScytheMeister7 who listens to all of my ideas && constantly threatens me to get me to not delete this <3 love ya ally moley

“What took you forever?” Zack asks, when Tyler finally opens the front door to the house. It’s been a good, long, hard 2 minutes for the Joseph family, to wait outside of the door, even though they didn’t really give Tyler much of a warning that they were coming home. He’s a little frazzled and out of breath as Zack pushes past him and shoves a bag of groceries into his hands, but he blinks a couple of times just to remind himself where he is, to mentally prepare himself for some of the comments that Zack’s going to make.

Maddy and Jay are close by, holding bags of their own, and they give Tyler sympathetic looks when his parents say with a little edge to their voices, “We’ve been waiting outside for 5 minutes, Tyler.”

Of course, his parents have a key, and Zack has a key, and _everyone_ has a key. The whole point is to prove that Tyler lulls around the house all day, and he probably didn’t clean, and he was probably sleeping and it probably took him all that time to wake up. The whole point is that Tyler’s just a useless dropout.

“I… I, um. Sorry,” Tyler offers offhandedly, taking the bag of groceries out of Maddy’s hands. “I cleaned though?”

“Congrats,” Zack says sarcastically, tailing Tyler into the spotless kitchen- the dishwasher quietly hums, filling in the silence, and when Zack puts his hand on the counter, it comes up clean. He checked, to make sure it wasn’t some sort of illusion. “Glad to know you can do something!”

“Zack,” Maddy looks over to her older brother and gives him this _look_ , but Zack just laughs it off, playing punching Tyler hard in the shoulder. “What? We’re just joking around, right Tyler?”

Tyler just rolls his eyes, and begins unpacking the bags, setting cans of food and bags of chips in their correct spots in the cabinets. “Yeah, sure. We’re just being a bunch of jokesters.”

His mother sets another bag of fast food on the dinner table, and Tyler groans internally- this means they’re all going to have to eat together, and Tyler would rather just run back up to his room more than anything. There’s something so unsettling in the way that Zack’s always leering at him- like he gets off on it, or something, just making Tyler feel stupid. But nevertheless- he walks over to the dinner table when he finishes packing up all of the groceries, and he pulls out a burger from the McDonalds. Cue Wendy’s comment in 3…2…

“Too bad we didn’t get food from Wendy’s, huh? Tyler could have gotten us an employee discount. Only good thing from working there, I suppose,” Zack shakes his head, before he dives into his burger.

It’s best to just ignore these things. Tyler leaves his fries in the bag, but he takes out his own burger, and takes a bite after he removes all of the wrapping. “Yeah, guess so.”

It’s quiet- the sound of chewing and slurping from straws and the occasional wheeze from Jay when he shoves too much food into his mouth is the only thing that really fills the air, and it’s so uncomfortable. It doesn’t really even feel like he’s sitting with his parents, it feels like he’s with a bunch of strangers that have nothing in common.

Well, actually.

Anyways- that uncomfortable, bone-chilling kind of silence only breaks when Tyler’s mother clears her throat, and she says, “Tyler, honey, I’ve been meaning to ask. Where is your keyboard? I was in your room looking for… _something_ , and I didn’t see it in its spot, and- well, it’s not around the house. You didn’t… _sell_ it, did you? Because we bought you that with our money, and-“

Tyler knows exactly where the keyboard is- sitting in his room across town, in Pete’s spare room. He’s been slowly transferring his stuff there- his keyboard and the stand, some of his dressy clothes. Pete gave him a weird look as he glanced at the outfits in hangers, but Pete was wearing a kilt with a flannel wrapped around his waist, so Tyler’s not really sure if Pete can be the judge of bad clothes.

But when he opens his mouth to tell her just exactly where the keyboard is, he pauses.

This is it, isn’t it? When he tells his parents that he’s moving out, that he signed the contract and that by the end of the month, pretty much exactly 2 weeks to the date, he would be gone. His room would be empty, and he would be across town in an apartment. With someone _they didn’t even know._ Maybe things would be different if it were Jenna, if Jenna weren’t living at home either.

But then they would be so full of false hope- like maybe after a long night Tyler and Jenna would just lose touch of their gayness and sleep with each other and then fall in love and give them a whole bunch of grandkids. Right. Totally.

It’s been a good minute of straight up thinking, _should I tell them, how are they gonna react, what’s Zack gonna say, will Maddy even care, should I tell them now, should I just leave in the middle of the night like what I planned to do in the very beginning, should-_

His father bangs his hand on the table, and Maddy shudders at the sound, “Tyler! Did you sell the keyboard, yes or no?!”

“No! I didn’t I swear! It’s at my friend’s house.” Tyler says, before he backtracks a little, “Well, it’s in my room… at my friend’s apartment.”

There’s a moment where everyone just blinks at him. No one knows what to say, they’re all waiting for Tyler to elaborate, and so Tyler babbles, talking with the burger in his hand, “I, um. Well, I thought a lot about what you said, Mom, about me not doing anything with my life and sleeping in the same room I always have been, and how I… like, leech off of you guys. And my friend, he needed a roommate, and I said yes, cause I don’t want to be a burden... on you guys.”

“Moving in with your _boyfriend_?” Zack sneers, like that’s some sort of insult.

“No,” Tyler replies, “and it wouldn’t really be any of your business if I were, would it?”

Maddy covers her mouth, concealing a grin, but Zack brushes it off. He plays the game well. Tyler, not so much. There’s only so many snappy comments under his belt before he lets everything get to his head. His parents are still exchanging shocked looks, like they can’t believe what they’re hearing.

“It’s just very… interesting to me, that’s all. I didn’t know you could read contracts. Or read at all,” Zack says, and Maddy kicks him under the chair. “He can read, he graduated high school, he was in school for 2 years, he’s not _stupid_.”

“Maddy, don’t kick your brother,” their mother says, but she’s staring right at Tyler, daggers into his soul.

“So when were you going to tell us? 2 months after you left?” she asks, and Tyler winces just a little. “Well, no, but- I’m telling you now! I’ll give you rent, I have enough, but, I mean… I’m 22, I didn’t think I needed permission.”

“You live under our roof,” she reminds him, “of course you had to ask us. You’re our son, we don’t even know this person, who he is, what-“

“Well, it’s too late now!” Zack says loudly, “But I think we should meet him. Right, mom?”

Tyler can’t imagine Pete walking into the house and it being a good thing. He’d show up with two pounds of eyeliner slathered over his eyelids, with all of his tattoos out. And Patrick would probably tag along, and then they’d make out on the couch. Tyler’s all caught up on the Pete and Patrick drama- Josh keeps him posted.

“You don’t have to meet him,” Tyler stresses, talking as he chews, “I trust him. I’m 22. You don’t trust me to make smart choices?”

Alright, Tyler definitely walked into that one himself.

“Well,” his father begins to say, “you haven’t proved that you do. You dropped out of school. You got a tattoo. You’ve come home drunk more than once, you’ve-“

“Then you should be glad I’m leaving,” Tyler says, “I don’t have to rot your house from the inside out. You can pretend I just don’t exist!”

There’s that fire that builds in his veins. He sounds crazy, he thinks. He begins to say everything he’s bottled up inside, everything that he doesn’t even tell Josh. He’s making himself so vulnerable for attack, but he’s so tired of the games, and the back and forth with Zack.

“You can just pretend I died! Zack can be your star kid, and I can be the black sheep kid you gossip about in church. I don’t really see how me moving out affects you negatively! You can turn my room into some sort of Zack shrine!”

He doesn’t even care about being quiet, even though he should be. “You don’t have to buy the extra groceries, and the car won’t be crowded anyone, and Zack can get the shower 20 minutes earlier.”

His parents keep exchanging these looks. These sort of ‘ _he figured it out_ ’ looks that they think Tyler is oblivious to, cause he’s ‘stupid’ and ‘doesn’t know anything’.  Maddy is quiet, Jay looks over to Zack, excited for another Zack comment because he likes when they argue at the table, and Zack has his lips pressed in a thin line.

“Tyler, honey, it just- it just hurts me that you feel this way,” his mother says softly. “We only want what’s best for you. And you living here, that’s what’s best for you. Not living with your… your _friend_. You need to stay here and figure out what it is you’re going to do next, stay with the people who love you and will help guide you.”

He blinks at them. “He’s just a friend. I’m not living with my boyfriend.”

They look skeptical. And a little disgusted at the ‘my’ in the sentence. _My boyfriend_.

“I already signed the contract, Mom. I’m moving out,” Tyler says, and for the first time it really clicks. Home is the apartment with the beautiful view of the sunrise. Home is Patrick singing in the shower. Home is the small room with the keyboard tucked in the corner.

Everyone is silent again, even Zack. Maybe they’re trying to picture a home without Tyler, but that’s probably wishful thinking. Maybe they wouldn’t even miss him. Maybe when the holidays roll around and they’re all shopping for Christmas presents, Tyler will be the last thing on their minds. Would they even invite him? Would things be awkward at church? When they don’t sit together and they avert eye contract and push questions to the side?

“If you really want out, why don’t you leave now?” his mother asks, and when Tyler looks up to her, her stare is icy. Blue eyes that send chills down his spine, and not in a good way. “Why don’t you just pack your stuff and go? Now?”

Even his father looks a little shocked- Maddy’s jaw is open, like she can’t believe that her mother is saying what she’s saying.

“Okay,” Tyler says. His voice sounds thick. He feels like he’s being dragged down, like he’s in quicksand. “When you leave for church tomorrow, I’ll do it.”

“Okay,” she says back, and that’s it. Zack coughs uncomfortably, and he dives back into conversation about something that happened in class, and everyone besides Tyler shifts their attention to him. Tyler just sits in his seat and stares at the paper wrapper.

That’s it then, he guesses.

He can’t even feel anything but numb. He feels like he’s somewhere else, just floating. He’s going to have to pack all of his shit by tomorrow. He’s going to have to be out by the time they come back.

He drags himself out of his seat, grabbing the bag with the French fries in them, and he tosses out his garbage before he walks back to his room. The stairs don’t feel like stairs, he doesn’t even really register walking up them. The bag in his hands feels like nothing but a weight that keeps him on his feet.

He swings the bedroom door open, and Josh looks up from his spot on Tyler’s bed, looks up from doodling in the sketchbook that Tyler hastily threw at him before he ran downstairs to answer the doorbell. Tyler barely even gives Josh a smile, he just tosses the bag with the fries in them and he curls into Josh’s side.

“Sorry, that took forever…” Tyler says, slowly, like he’s talking for the first time, “I saved you some fries, uh, did you-“

“Kinda,” Josh winces, and he wraps an arm around Tyler. “I didn’t mean to, it just kinda traveled through the vents. Do you wanna-“

“No,” Tyler sighs, “no, I don’t wanna talk. I just wanna stay here with you. I don’t know. I feel, like, fuzzy."

He pauses, and looks to Josh sheepishly. “Not really in the mood to keep making out.”

Key word ‘ _keep’_ \- they figured that after going on their ‘official’ first date, it was sort of justifiable. The date was in the park just like Josh promised it would be, and the flowers that Josh gave to him, the ones that Josh bought because he didn’t want to rip the flowers from the garden, are sitting near the windowsill in a vase filled with water. They ate ice cream and when they got back to Tyler’s place, empty like Tyler knew it was going to be, they run up the stairs and tumbled into Tyler’s bed.

Cue 20 minutes later and a boner that Tyler had to somehow will down, the doorbell rang.

And now Tyler’s here. And the date and the fast food dinner that Tyler just had, they don’t even feel like they happened on the same day.

This is what he wanted, so he’s not sure why he feels _dread_ slugging around in his veins.

“Wasn’t gonna suggest it,” Josh says, and he lifts his arm, letting Tyler curl into his side more comfortably, “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it? Cause we can- I mean. I’ll come in the morning to help, Joe and Andy work tomorrow. And I can call Pete, he’d probably let you move in early, he’s kinda chill like that, he’d understand.”

“It’s not that,” Tyler shakes his head as much as he can, given his position, “I know I’m overreacting, this is what I wanted. I’m getting my wish, I’m leaving, and I’m leaving _early_ , it’s just… stupid. It’s just stupid. What I’m feeling is stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” Josh tries to say, but Tyler interrupts him, sitting up so he can look into Josh’s eyes, “It _is_. I’m sure I sound crazy, and I keep telling you I want out, and then I get out, and now I’m like, I-I’m like… I’m like kinda freaking the fuck out right now?”

He tries to pull himself away from Josh, because he feels like he’s being dunked under water, kinda like he’s suffocating, and he says, not really entirely sure of what’s coming out of his mouth, “I didn’t think they would kick me out, you know, I thought it was gonna be unpleasant until I left but they just, they just don’t get it, they don’t understand how they make me feel, and I shouldn’t care but they’re still my parents, like- shit. Shit. _Shit_.”

He can’t do this in front of Josh- but his breath comes in sporatics anyways.

“Hey, no, no, hold on,” Josh says, Tyler doesn’t understand how Josh’s voice can sound like that, like warm chocolate chip cookies on a cold day, “Let’s just- here, deep breaths. I’ll do them with you.”

Josh holds Tyler’s hands in his, and they breathe together. Tyler almost doesn’t want to look into Josh’s eyes, it feels almost too soon and too intimate, but they do anyways, brown eyes and brown eyes, and it’s not enough but it feels like it.

“I’m sorry that tonight was ruined,” Tyler says, after he finally catches his breath. His hands are still intertwined with Josh’s- the black line against Josh’s whole sleeve. “We were having fun, and then…”

“It’s not ruined,” Josh says, “we’re still here, right? So… y’know, maybe I’m not sucking your dick right now, but I like _you_ , not a version of you that doesn’t have problems.”

“You’d be sucking my dick right now?” Tyler asks, with raised eyebrows, and Josh ducks his head a little, “Uh… I think. I wanna. Eventually, not today, not now. _But that’s not the point_ , the point is that I’m, like, here for you. I’ll call up Pete tonight, maybe he could take off and help us pack. I think he’s pissed at Patrick, or something.”

“No, you don’t have to,” Tyler sighs, pulling his hands away, just so he can run them over his face, rubbing away the exhaustion. It’s late- Tyler isn’t exactly sure how Josh is gonna go home, and he’s not sure if he _wants_ to send Josh home.

But that’d be a sight- his mother walking into his room and finding Josh in bed with him.

“I’ll just probably wake up early and do it. You can come though. Maybe Jen too, I don’t think she has work either. We can make a party out of it,” Tyler says sarcastically, as he shakes his head. _God_ , he thinks, _last night in my room_.

“We can!” Josh says, clearly not getting the sarcasm that Tyler thought was dripping, “I’ll bring my speakers. Play a little Grouplove, some Modest Mouse. Whatever Jenna likes. Maybe I could make breakfast, my eggs are killer. Not as good as Pete’s though? He’s always adding stuff to his…”

“A party?” Tyler asks, still a little skeptical. Mostly cause ‘party’ to Tyler means getting blackout drunk and not remembering anything that happened the night before. Not really ‘packing all of my shit cause my parents said so’. “I mean, I guess. It’ll be better than just standing around in silence.”

“Yeah, exactly, and-“

There’s a knock on Tyler’s bedroom door, and Tyler and Josh exchange horrified and frantic looks, before they scramble.

“Hold on, I’m- yeah, hold on,” Tyler says, as Josh glances around the room for some place to hide- Tyler’s room is super small, since it’s technically the attic. So, he just gets under the covers and tries to make himself look like a lump. Tyler leans against him, Josh mutters out a curse cause that was his face, and then Tyler tries to look as nonchalant as possible with the doodling book in his hands, when he says, “C-come in!”

Maddy slowly opens the door, and she stands awkwardly in the door-frame. “Um… hi.”

“Hi…” Tyler replies, leaning back further. He trusts Maddy the most out of all of them… but just in case. He swears he feels Josh poke him in the back.

“Can I come in? I wanna talk to you. It’s nothing bad,” she says softly, but then she lets herself in anyways. She walks towards the bed, Tyler holds his breath, and she sits next to him. She opens her mouth to say something, but then she eyes the book in Tyler’s hands. “Whoa… you drew that?”

She’s talking about the design Josh was drawing- it’s some intricate flower thing, sunflowers and roses, and the entire design takes up the leg that Josh also drew. The flowers look like the ones they saw in the park, and for a second, Tyler imagines that as his leg. Imagines Josh working on his inner thigh and smirking up at him. ‘ _Does it hurt, baby_?’ Josh would ask innocently, blinking up to him with his crinkled brown eyes, and Tyler would throw his head back.

He blinks back to reality before he can go deep into that fantasy. He’s sitting right next to his sister. He clears his throat, and he shakes his head, “Uh… nah. I just found it lying around.”

He swears he can hear Josh breathing. He wonders if Maddy can hear it too, if she’s just ignoring Josh to avoid an awkward situation.

“Just lying… alright, well it looks really cool. But anyways- I just wanted to come up and tell you that I want to help you tomorrow, when they leave for church. Because, because I really love you, y’know, and I know that you want to leave and I want to help. To make up for all of the times that I never stood up for you.”

There’s some truth to that, but Tyler doesn’t really blame her. Again- black sheep of the family. There’s no use in defending Tyler, there will always be something wrong. If his life were going well, if he were doing things right, they’d probably criticize how well he was doing. ‘He should tone it down a little…’

“It’s fine,” Tyler brushes it off, and he gives her a reassuring smile. “You don’t have to miss church and get in trouble for me. I have, uh. Friends coming over to help.”

“Is your boyfriend going to come?” Maddy asks, without a trace or a hint of maliciousness. She sounds genuine, like she actually really cares. It’s the most refreshing thing in the world, pink lemonade doesn’t have anything on this.

“Um… yeah, he is,” Tyler says, “Why? Do you want to meet him?”

“Yeah!” She exclaims, “And I want to help, Ty. Plus, boys suck at packing, I’ll help fold your clothes. I’ll just tell Mom I’m not feeling well. She’s not really in a good mood, and I don’t think she really cares as long as Zack is with her.”

They both roll their eyes at the same time. _Zack_.

“Well… if you really insist,” Tyler says, before he tugs at the covers a little. “So, you said you wanna meet Josh?”

“Who’s- oh. His name is Josh?” Maddy asks, and Tyler nods. “Yeah, Joshua.”

“That’s a nice name,” she says, and Tyler nods again, grinning as he says, “Yeah, it’s… it’s good. Um, don’t freak out?”

Her eyebrows furrow. “Freak out?”

Tyler pulls back on the covers a little, and Josh’s head peeks out. Maddy’s eyes widen, and Josh shifts a little, trying to pull himself out of the mess of covers. “Hi,” Josh says, and Maddy looks between Josh and Tyler. “Wait, he’s been here the whole time?” She asks, and Tyler nods. “Yeah, pretty much. Since before you guys came home.”

Josh’s hair is a mess, it sticks out in all directions, so he smooths it out a little. Maddy still looks shocked. “You- he’s been in here the whole time. Hiding?”

“Pretty much,” Josh says, with a sort of laugh in his voice. “It’s okay, though. I’m Josh, Tyler’s boyfriend.”

Tyler shudders, in a good way. So good. “Yeah, that’s Josh. He’s the one who drew the stuff in the book by the way. He’s a tattoo artist, he, uh…” Tyler holds out his wrist, and Maddy nods in understandment, as the gears finally click.

“It’s really good,” Maddy breathes out, and her eyes shift from looking at the design in the book, to trailing up Josh’s arm, eyeing the sleeve. Tyler can’t blame her, and there’s another shudder that wracks through his body. Josh is his boyfriend. The boy who would hide under covers, who would be patient with him and breathe with him to calm him down. The boy who _buys him flowers_.

“Thanks,” Josh smiles, “tattoos are kind of my entire life.”

Tyler leans back against Josh, but instead of Josh hiding under the covers, he’s here, sitting against the headboard. Maddy still looks a little shocked, even more so when she catches the way that Tyler and Josh just naturally curl into each other.

“How long have you guys been dating?” she asks, and they exchange a look, before Tyler explains the entire thing to her, with some corrections and comments on Josh’s side.

They talk for a while, the three of them, about Josh’s plan for a little party, about Josh’s life, about music and about the date, and they listen to Maddy complain about homework until Tyler’s mother calls her down to help her clean up some spots that Tyler missed.

Tyler’s not sure what he expected from Maddy, if he expected her to run downstairs and tell their mother about the strange man in Tyler’s bed with the pink hair and the tattoo sleeve, but he didn’t expect that. All of them talking like this wasn’t the first time Maddy had ever met one of Tyler’s boyfriends, them talking about Tyler moving out like it was nothing. Maddy and Josh exchange numbers, and for some reason, that exchange, and them laughing together, felt better, more intimate, than any makeout session Josh and Tyler ever had.

And after a (barely) successful attempt to sneak Josh into the bathroom, Josh used his finger to brush his teeth because Tyler draws the line at people that aren’t himself using his toothbrush, it becomes apparent that Josh isn’t sneaking out the window to go back home.

“Are you sure?” Josh asked, after Tyler had turned off the light. They’re not doing anything, they’re both wearing clothes, but Josh’s hair tickles Tyler’s jaw, and Tyler’s hands are on his waist.

“Yeah,” Tyler says, with a bitter smile on his face. “What are they going to do, kick me out?”

* * *

Josh would be lying if he said that he had never spiraled headfirst into a relationship- because he has. But he can’t say that he’s ever seen the inside of his boyfriend’s shower after the first date.

Tyler’s shower is small, and smells like Tyler’s shampoo. He doesn’t use it in his hair, because he has the special stuff that’s specific to color treated color, but he’s tempted to pour some of the shampoo into his palm just _cause_. There are a whole assortment of soaps, Axe bodywash that could only belong to Zack because Tyler doesn’t smell like a douchebag, and Bath and Body Works stuff that smells like what _sweet_ tastes like. In the end, he opts for the soap he can only really assume is for Jay, even though Jay looks a little too old to be using it- blue raspberry scented body gel, with Cookie Monster on the side of the bottle.

As he rubs the blue suds over his body, he wonders if they're going too fast in the relationship. That’s never a good thing, right? Maybe the same way that Josh noticed the small stuff about Tyler, about how stubborn he is, how he snores, how he steals all of the covers and they have to play this constant game of tug-and-war while they’re both asleep, maybe Tyler noticed some stuff too. And he’s thinking that maybe it was a bad idea, sleeping over, but he remembers waking up to Tyler’s hand on his back, to Tyler slowly easing him awake with soft words, and it’s sort of worth it. Even if they have nothing, they _had_ this.

Tyler had woken him just after his parents left with Jay and Zack, and he said he was going to make apple cinnamon oatmeal. Jenna was going to bring some donuts later on since she still had to stop by the church to attend the service, and Maddy was making pancakes. And Josh told Pete to bring something… but he had a feeling that Pete was gonna show up either 1) empty-handed or 2) with a three-course meal. Pete’s about as unpredictable as unpredictable gets.

After that thought, it’s almost mindless thinking, he argues with Pete in his head when he splashes water on his face, and he hums the chorus to ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’ by Taylor Swift under his breath when he runs a towel over his body after he pulls the shower curtains to the side (“Now I’m lying on the cold, hard ground!”).

Tyler gave him a pair of sweats to wear, and awkwardly passed a pair of boxers his way as well. And the hoodie isn’t the skeleton one, nor is the one with the zipper straight down the middle- it’s actually a university sweatshirt. He wonders why Tyler still has it, if he ever thinks about his days at college… but he doesn’t ask about it when he gets downstairs.

They’re playing music Josh doesn’t know. That’s one of Josh’s favorite parts of dating, like, _ever_ \- learning new stuff.

“Hi,” Tyler waves to Josh when he catches a whiff of the strong blue raspberry body wash, but he turns back around to finish up making the oatmeal. Maddy’s pulling syrup out of the fridge, and there’s a cup of coffee brewing in its pot. Josh waves back, he says good-morning to Maddy.

And he reaches into the fridge to pull out the carton of eggs, but then the doorbell rings, so he answers it. And there’s Pete, wearing shades, and carrying two bottles of vodka in brown bags. “Sup Yachiru! Did you- oh shit, your hair is wet, did you—“

Before Josh can protest, Pete pulls Josh outside by the hoodie, and he swings the door shut, before he looks up to Josh, grinning like a mad-man. “You dirty little bastard! Did you sleep with him?! You slept here!”

“No!” Josh tries to say, but Pete’s shaking his head at him, cackling as he says, “You can’t fool me, fool, I know that look, and that’s the look of a man who just had a dick up-“ “Would you fucking _shut up_?! We didn’t have sex! We slept together, technically, but no funny business.”

Pete raises an eyebrow- Josh can barely see it past the shades on his face, though. Pete’s such an asshole- it’s not even sunny outside. “What? So you just, you just slept together? Just to do it? And there was no- nothing?”

Josh shakes his head. “Nothing. I’m not upset about it, it was a rough night.”

After that Pete just huffs angrily and stomps into the house- Josh swears he heard a quiet ‘Must be nice’… but it also could have been ‘What a loser’, which he doesn’t put past Pete either.

Josh follows him back in, closing the door behind him, and he walks into Pete and Maddy shaking hands. “I work with Jinx over here,” Pete says, cocking his head to side so that it points in Josh’s direction, “and- wait, you get my reference, right? It’s cause she has pink hair, Josh has pink hair, kinda like that.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Maddy grins, laughing a little when she catches Josh flipping Pete off. “Dyed hair is so cool. Mom would never let me do it, but I think it would be fun to try.”

“You should,” Josh says, pulling the two bottles of vodka out of their bags. Both Tyler and Maddy eye it suspiciously, while Pete takes over ‘egg duty’. He talks over Josh, but he’s speaking to Tyler. “So… where do you keep your seasoning? Exactly?”

“I mean, my friend Hayley, she’s really good at it. Maybe if you ask her really nicely she could hook you up, I think she goes to the same school as you. I mean, her hair is blonde right now, with a little strip of blue, but she’s done like… fire engine red, and violet.”

He feels the need to explain himself, why he’s friends with a high schooler, before Maddy thinks that her brother’s boyfriend is super creepy. “She, uh, works next door at the music store with Brendon, they’re always, like, annoying us… but they kinda grow on you. Kinda like moss on a building?”

Meanwhile, in the back- “Wait, _that’s it_? That’s- alright, I’ll see what I can do… I should become a _chef_. You’d come to my restaurant, right Tyler? Say you’d come. You know you want to! Say-“ “Okay, yes,” Tyler says in that monotone voice that makes Josh laugh, “I’ll definitely come to your hypothetical restaurant.”

“Oh wow, I know them!” Maddy exclaims, “Um… Brendon…. he’s dating Ryan Ross, right?”

Josh nods with a wince, but it’s okay because Maddy winces a little too. “They’re… _interesting_. But they’re always really nice!” She says.

Eventually, the two conversations merge- they’re all discussing Pete’s restaurant, Edgar Allan Potato, and Pete says that he’s gonna make Tyler a server since he has a great customer smile (Tyler scowls, and Pete says ‘See, wouldja look at that!’), Josh is gonna mix the drinks (Josh takes a sip of orange juice and vodka), and Pete said he was gonna make Maddy the manager just cause she has the face for it. No one knows what he means. And finally, he says he’s gonna add a Hayley Williams special and a Brendon Urie special on the menu- the Hayley one is a hair dye job in the bathroom, and the Brendon one is just him screaming to you about how much he loves his boyfriend.

And by the time he’s done with all of that, it took forever because everyone kept suggesting items to add to the menu, for 60 bucks Patrick could give you tattoo right at the table and for an additional 2, Josh could give you one of his sunshine smiles, they’re all pretty much done eating, which means that all of the fun is done. Josh watches as Tyler sneaks more vodka into his drink than Josh did, but Josh really can’t interfere, not when Pete drank straight from the bottle, tears at the corner of his eyes at the burn because it was room temperature and not freezing cold.

They all trudge up the stairs, mostly quietly, save for Pete talking to Maddy about tattoos- (“Nah, it hurts, but it’s so worth it. I’m kind of a masochist, though? So, you’re going to want a second opinion.”)

And then they get to Tyler’s room, the sheets are still a mess, and Josh’s clothes lie in a pile near the bed. The flowers by the window are still in the same shape as they were yesterday, vibrant colors against the navy blue of the room.

No one knows where to start.

And they’re waiting for Tyler to make the first move.

The garbage bags they brought up crinkle loudly in the silence.

Tyler’s eyes are kinda hazy as he stares at the mattress, but then he sort of jolts forward after a moment and rips the covers off, throwing them to the floor. He starts on the cover sheet, and that’s everyone’s cue to start moving. Josh asks Tyler what his favorite album is, trying to soothe the burn, and Tyler shrugs. But then he answers anyways a beat later, “Uh… just do the Spreading Rumors album.”

Maddy’s working on the clothes- when she opens his drawers, all of his clothes are stuffed in haphazardly, and she groans as she throws bundles of clothes onto the bare mattress. The mattress that Josh slept on last night, it was so comfy, it felt like home, with the multiple pillows and the black sheets, but it just looks sad now. A blue mattress with little stars on it, it looks empty in the way a once packed stadium looks after everyone leaves. Like it’s missing something. All that’s left is sticky spilled soda in the form of little indents in the mattress from years of use, from Josh’s body.

Pete’s taking care of the books- stacking them into the boxes that he forgot earlier in the trunk of his car. It’s not a good idea, though- he’s sitting in Tyler’s chair with his feet propped on the desk and legs crossed as he flips through the pages of the first book he picked up. He bobs his head to the music, ‘ _Oh, I was so in love but then I fell apart’_.

Tyler’s definitely a little tipsy. He’s working on cleaning out his closet, pulling out old art projects and yearbooks and some of his journals are in there. Josh sits with him, and the music is loud, loud for things not to be awkward in the room, because everyone’s invested in what they’re doing, and no one is really talking, but he still rests a hand on Tyler’s shoulder. “You’re good?”

Tyler shrugs. “Can’t really think about it for too long? Also, I’m a little drunk. Such a fucking lightweight.”

Josh laughs in a way that really isn’t a laugh. “Yeah, I can tell. Here, I’ll sit with you. Just pass me all of the stuff you wanna toss.”

And that’s how they work for a good while- Pete puts down the first book after a couple of minutes, he sets a second book into the box, does a double take, and pulls it out, shifting back into his position. Maddy’s on another drawer, Tyler’s tee-shirts are all in neat pile and his sweatpants are on their way, and Josh and Tyler make it through all of the random knick-knacks, tossing away journal entries that are just blacked out in pen, and keeping the ones that Tyler reads through with a sort of bitter, nostalgic smile.

They’re on ‘Hippy Hill’ on the album, there were some breaks when Pete wanted to listen to Kendrick, some when Maddy wanted to switch over to Demi Lovato, and Josh has Tyler listen to his favorite Modest Mouse song, ‘Ocean Breathes Salty’, when the doorbell rings. Pete runs down to go get the door since he’s up on his feet again, finally done with a full shelf.

“My favorite song is next, ‘What I Know’” Tyler says to Josh, rolling his shoulders a little, cracking his knuckles. “Wanna take a break?”

“Yeah, sure,” Josh says, and his bones crack a little too when he stands up. He holds a hand out to help Tyler up, and Tyler pushes up against the corner of the desk when he stands. “It’s, like… I don’t know. You make playlists, right?”

Josh nods, as the song starts- it’s kinda sad sounding, like a cry.

“You’re gonna laugh, but… I have one playlist in my phone, and it’s just this one song on repeat. Like, a hundred times over,” Tyler says, _‘And it doesn’t matter where I live, after a while I wanna split, you specialize in twice as nice, I fall asleep but not at night’_

“But… why don’t you just keep it on repeat?” Josh asks, ‘ _What I know, I march in my own parade, I don’t know, it’s all just utter pain, I don’t care, I plan out my escape, I don’t know, what else can I say?_ ’

Tyler shrugs, “Cause I’m really dramatic? But anyways, that’s how much I love this song. Kinda what you felt when we played your song, like you kinda just wanna die in it.”

For a second, it doesn’t even feel like Maddy’s still in the room, probably listening in on their conversation. It’s just the two of them, and this song, _‘Oh Angeline, is this the only way? Oh Angeline, I think you’re likely to stay, Oh Angeline, I’m not the only one, Los Angeles you got that hot, burning sun’_ , and Tyler pulls Josh close by the hoodie advertising university he dropped out of, and kisses him.

It smells like dust in the room, Maddy’s probably looking over to them, all of Tyler’s heart and soul is out in the open with all of his journals lying around, Jenna and Pete are coming up the stairs, but they kiss anyways. Tyler’s hands cup Josh’s face, Josh’s eyes are closed, Tyler tastes like orange juice and vodka, the drum beat echoes in Josh’s heart.

“Oh wow,” Pete says in the background, but Josh can barely hear him. He’s fuzzy like music from another room. Is this what love feels like? Love doesn’t come in 3 weeks after one date. “Should we go somewhere else? Should- alright, no one is replying, let’s go.”

Another song comes on, but Josh isn’t really even listening anymore. They break apart and Tyler pulls him down to the bed, it creaks like it did yesterday but everything has changed. The room is becoming empty, the posters are packed and the shelves are bare and they’re on top of shirts Josh has never seen before. Tyler clings to Josh, pushes him against the mattress, their kiss isn’t as passionate as it is desperate, maybe Tyler’s just drunk and he doesn’t know what he’s doing. There are butterflies in Josh’s guts, and he feels like he’s on fire.

“We can’t do this now,” Tyler rasps out, his lips are swollen and he has tears in his eyes, he ducks back down, they kiss again, and Josh is so hard, “my sister, Jenna, Pete- they’re all outside.”

They both break away with a sigh. Josh tries to think about dead puppies. “Yeah, I know,” he says, and Tyler falls off of his body, slumping over onto the blue and starry mattress. There's no pillows to cushion the fall.

It’s quiet, Josh is trying to catch his breath, until Tyler looks over and says in a soft voice, “ _Fuck_. Every time I hear that song, I’m just gonna think about my sister watching us make out.”

The butterflies are set free when Josh laughs- are the tears that run from his eyes from the laughter or the love?

* * *

Tyler cries as Jenna and Josh work together to get the mattress down the stairs. It’s the last thing that has to be brought down- after they both had calmed down, and after Pete made fun of them for 10 minutes straight, Jenna put them all to work for real. No more sitting around and talking and reading books, although they _did_ eat the donuts that Jenna brought from coffee hour at church. The clothes were folded and packed, journals and books were crammed into boxes, albums were stacked, etc.

Everything else fit in Pete’s car, since Pete’s truck is huge. ‘ _Wow, you really are overcompensating, huh?_ ’ Jenna said jokingly, when she saw Pete’s truck- she was totally jabbing at Pete’s short height. Pete turned to her with wide eyes, and he shook his head with sadness, _‘That was cruel… that was so cruel.’_

And so, Pete left to bring everything to his place. He wasn’t as drunk anymore, all of the effects of the couple of shots that they took wore away, which is why Tyler’s (in his words) ‘a total fucking mess’.

As for Josh and Jenna, they’re practically reenacting the ‘pivot’ scene from FRIENDS. The mattress is _heavy_ , and it’s big, and Josh is beyond out of breath. Fuck going to gym- his workout is right here. It gets stuck, Jenna threatens to kill Josh if he yells ‘pivot’ one more time in an attempt to be funny, ‘ _We get the reference, Josh_!’, and it’s only until they get the mattress down the stairs, that Josh notices Tyler and Maddy sitting amongst a pile of tissues. Tyler sniffles, his voice is thick, “I’m just moving across town, you’d think I was moving to Europe.”

Maddy shakes her head- she looks teary-eyed too. “Shut up, you being emotional isn’t a bad thing. You know I’m gonna text you Christian memes at, like, 4 in the morning.”

Tyler laughs wetly, and he blows his nose before he says, “I hate those memes, but they’re so funny.”

“I know, that’s why I send them!” Maddy says, Jenna and Josh glance each other, not sure if they should intervene (they don’t- their moment seems too personal), before Jenna takes Tyler’s car keys, and they work on getting the mattress out the door.

“But seriously, Ty, you know I’m literally going to be right here for the next couple of years. And I’m expecting you to invite me over to watch Donnie Darko the next time you watch it, not cause I enjoy watching it… just cause I can quote the entire thing thanks to you always watching it and it’s become a comfort movie. And… and maybe I’ll even hang out with Hayley and Brendon, Josh told me that they’re really cool once you get past all the extra-ness,” Maddy says, and Tyler nods, a fresh set of tears fighting its way to the surface.

He hates his family, he hates his family, he hates his family… except Maddy. Maddy, who’s too afraid to speak up, except Tyler’s been in her position before, and he knows that she will one day.

“I think I’m just—ugh, I don’t know. So many things happening,” Tyler says, “like the tattoo, and then Josh, who’s amazing, and we all know what happens when I meet someone amazing, and now this, everything is just shifting.”

“I think,” Maddy begins to say, “that instead of going into your relationship thinking it’s going to fall to shit like the other ones have, you should go into it thinking it’s going to be amazing. Blank slate, huh?”

Blank slate. Blank room, waiting to be filled. This is a new chapter in his life, Maddy’s right. It’s just that Tyler could never wire his brain to do stuff like ‘go into things with optimism’

Still- he appreciates the effort.

Josh comes back into the house and says through heaving breaths, “Just- got- the- mattress- in- the car- finally.”

Jenna looks equally tired when she walks in, but she gives Tyler a hopeful smile. “So, I think we’re all set. You okay?”

Tyler nods, balling up all of the tissues and shoving them into his hoodie pocket so that he doesn’t have to walk with them in his hands all the way to garbage can. “Yeah, think so. Are we- should we go now?”

Maddy glances at the time on her phone, and she sucks in a breath. “Like… 20 minutes ago.”

And so, they go. Jenna’s coming back with them to help pack the new room, and Josh is driving since he drank the least out of all of them.

Tyler takes a deep breath when he walks outside, the air is crisp and fresh and it smells like—

“Wait, hold on, start the car, I’ll be back in a second,” he tells them, and they give him odd looks, but nevertheless, they go to the car. Tyler runs back into the house, back into the room that looks so empty, the desk with Tyler’s inscriptions and drawings and the bedframe are the only things left, besides the flowers that Josh got for him. He has to take them out of the water, he can’t bring a full vase with him, but he takes the flowers out, and he runs back down the stairs.

“Sorry,” he says to Maddy, “I forgot something. Bye,” he waves with the flowers, but Maddy gives him a goodbye hug, and makes him promise to text a picture of the room when it’s full with Tyler’s stuff.

“Sorry,” he says to Josh and Jenna, when he steps into the car. He sets the flowers in his lap when he puts his seatbelt on, and Josh leans over to kiss him before they drive.

The slate is finally blank, but he’s still got his guy and his best friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi all!!! im so sorry this is late (lmao every time i update???) but i pretty much rewrote and rewrote this and then changed directions and now i finally feel HAPPY with this so!!! wooooo! no more of that filler stuff! yes! 
> 
> i also have a playlist called 'feel better' that's just one song. it's "dark blue" by jacks mannequin like 70 times in a row cause it makes everything a lot more dramatic lmaooo i have... i have you breathin down my neck breathin down my neck... 
> 
> next on my list of things to write: chef!pete ! i didnt even plan on pete being a master of eggs.. but now all i can think about is that scene in the hundred foot journey when hassan has to make that perfect omelet, and all i see is pete making it perfectly while simultaneously carrying a conversation about how we're all gonna die. fun fact that no one asked for, my mom forced me to go see that movie w her and my friends for my 15th bday because my cousin gave me a second ear piercing in her closet at 4am when we were in canada and we never asked for permission :/


	9. Chapter 9

It took a couple of weeks, but the apartment with the beautiful view of the sunrise was _finally_ starting to look a little less ‘Pete’ and a little more ‘Pete &Tyler’. Pete used to trip over Tyler’s sneakers in the living room space, but now he could walk over them in his sleep. Tyler got used to the sight of dirty dishes in the sink because Pete loved cooking but he hated cleaning up after himself, and Pete became accustomed to the sound of Tyler’s singing voice when he inevitably took over the cleaning duties and would play his songs as he scrubbed at grease in pans. It was nothing like Patrick’s voice, smooth cream cheese over rich red velvet cake, but it was nice enough. It was creaky like the bathroom door that stopped freaking Tyler out so much when it would open and shut at night thanks to the draft, his voice sounded a little like the thoughts in Pete’s head.

Or maybe that’s because Tyler used to keep Pete up at night with his singing- Josh’s drumming was a lot worse, the drums echoed around in his head as if it were hollow, and Joe having sex on the couch made Pete want to run his nails over blackboard, but it took a while for Pete to be able to sleep through the ukulele and the keyboard smashes and the songs that increased in volume until Tyler was screaming. He’d lie awake on his back and try to will himself to sleep, counting sheep into the thousands, dreaming up of scenarios with Patrick that would never come true. Like... Patrick sleeping over just to sleep over, just to hang out.

But besides the rerun episodes of Malcolm in the Middle saved in the DVR, the little Mii of Tyler that Pete set up, he has a red shirt and Pete gave him a goatee for absolutely no reason, besides the melodies and the vocals and the shoes and the moans that seeped from underneath the door whenever Josh was over, the biggest difference that came with living with Tyler was a person- Jenna.

Patrick’s not really sure how their friendship, or whatever the fuck they have going on, came to be as intense as it is… and truthfully no one else knows either. One day, Jenna’s over to hang out with Tyler and bring him a box of Girl Scout cookies, and the next, Jenna’s on the couch with Pete watching ‘Say Yes to the Dress’ with a bottle of red wine, trading baking recipes.

Like tonight- when Pete texted him ‘cum over ;)’, Patrick was 1000000% sure that Pete meant that he wanted to hook up. They hadn’t done _it_ in forever, the parlor was slowly but surely filling up more and more appointments, and Pete was still studying online and he had finals coming up, and there had been a good 3 week period where there was nothing but a couple of phone calls. And Pete babbled way too much when he tried to have phone sex, there were lots of ‘ _Are you there yet? Gonna come all over yourself like a little slut?_ ’ and then Patrick would have to explain that, no, he had barely even taken off his pants, and Pete would get pissed and say that he wasn’t playing along, and then Patrick would say something like ‘we’re not playing a game!’ and then—

The point is that Patrick was very much under the impression that they were going to have sex. It was a Sunday night, they had work in the morning, and so he brought a bag with his clothes and an extra toothbrush, he even brought Penny with him, and he was all prepped to… well, _cum_ over. No one sends a text like that, winky face and all, to invite someone over to watch a movie and eat pizza and hot wings.

Aaaaaaand then he knocked on the door, and _everyone_ was there. Josh and his fading pink hair, Tyler in his skeleton hoodie on the floor, eating from a plate filled with wings, and Jenna, with her blue eyes that were nicer than Patrick’s.

Pete looks between Patrick, the dog, and Patrick’s overnight bag. “Oh,” he says, surprised, “not that. We’re watchin’ a movie, I thought I’d ask. I haven’t seen you in like… forever.”

Pete rocks on his heels.

Patrick blinks at him.

“Wait so—we’re not having sex?”

Everyone is minding their own business, Tyler and Jenna and Josh are all talking, but Patrick feels like everyone is secretly eavesdropping on them, feels like everyone is hearing about how stupid this is. The fact that Patrick has an overnight bag and he brought his fucking dog to watch a movie.

“I mean… I’m not really in the mood. Kinda stressed,” Pete runs a hand through his hair, and he sighs. “Do you wanna just… I mean, you can sleepover. My pillowcase misses the smell of your shampoo.”

Patrick doesn’t even really have it in him right now to be humored. “So, how was I supposed to interpret that text? ‘Cum’ over? _Cum_ over?”

“It’s a joke! That’s just me being stupid! Come on, I made hot wiiiiiiings. Jen helped too! Let’s go, come in!” Pete opens the door further and takes Patrick’s bag out of his hands before Patrick can protest and get back in his car. “If you don’t come in, I’m gonna throw this out the window! Josh, open the window!”

Josh looks between Pete and Patrick and shakes his head, “Yeah, fuck no. I’m not starting World War III.”

Penny barks in her cage, and so Patrick reluctantly walks through the door. Pete does a little dance, shaking his shoulders a little, and he throws Patrick’s bag across the floor, as Patrick lets Penny out. She immediately runs for Tyler and the bones of the wings that he left behind, and Josh has to pull her into his lap before she can reach it.

“Allllllright!” Pete cheers, pulling Patrick by the hand to the couch. “We’re still searching for a movie, but we have wings and beer and some soda. And some stale chips.”

And usually, Pete snuggles up with Patrick- in fact, Patrick’s already preparing himself to protest (even though he eventually lets in, because Pete’s good at snuggling), but he doesn’t. Instead, he leans on _Jenna_. He wraps his arms around her, and lays his head in her lap, and she begins stroking his hair like… like they’re dating or something.

Josh and Tyler don’t really look fazed- Tyler’s busy eating, and Josh is busy petting Penny, and Patrick almost wants to shout ‘what the fuck’s going on?!’

“What do you wanna watch, Patrick?” Jenna asks, looking over to Patrick, and Patrick’s too flabbergasted to speak. Jenna… and Pete?

He runs through a sort of checklist in his mind.

  1. Jenna’s a girl- but Pete _is_ bi
  2. But Pete said that he had a stronger preference for guys- but there’s still a preference for girls, and Jenna’s pretty. Long blonde hair and blue eyes.
  3. But they fuck... but they haven’t in 3 weeks. And Pete doesn’t want to tonight, and Pete’s usually always down to fuck.
  4. Didn’t Pete and Jenna meet 3 weeks ago? The last time they had sex? In the back of Pete’s car, Patrick’s hands holding Pete down, Pete’s legs wrapped around-
  5. Wait, Jenna’s still expecting an answer to her question



“Uh… anything’s fine with me,” he says, giving her a small smile. And she shrugs, and keeps going through a list through Netflix with one hand on the remote and the other in Pete’s hair. Pete almost purrs, he’s all curled up next to Jenna and suddenly Patrick misses that weight on him.

Which is stupid, because Patrick has stated multiple times that he doesn’t like Pete. Pete’s too heavy, he crushes Patrick’s ribs when he sprawls himself over Patrick’s lap, and his hair is always greasy and gross when Patrick runs his fingers through it. He feels almost lonely, all by himself in the corner of the couch. Tyler’s cuddling with a plate of food, Josh is with Penny, and-

This is going to be a long night.

“Can we watch ‘Truman Burbank’?” Tyler asks, with his mouth stuffed with some chips- Josh gives him an odd look for a full minute, before he laughs, “‘The Truman Show’? You call it ‘Truman Burbank?!’”

“I forgot what it was called!” Tyler tries to say, but Josh laughs harder, shaking his head, “But ‘The Truman Show’ is a lot more memorable than ‘Truman Burbank!’”

As Tyler and Josh continue to bicker, Pete and Jenna have their own conversation- Patrick hones in on this one, mostly because only thing he can think about is Pete.

“Your lap is comfy,” Pete says, looking up at Jenna, “like, all warm n’ stuff. And you smell good.”

Patrick wonders if Jenna’s fingers are coated in head grease.

“Thanks!” Jenna says, “And your hair is soft.”

Patrick can almost imagine it- Pete on his knees, _that_ he knows well, but he’s with Jenna now, and Jenna’s got her fingers in Pete’s hair the same way that she does right now, except for the fact that she’s gripping it the way that Patrick does when Pete sucks him off, nice and slow, and-

“I need to pee!” Patrick exclaims, just before Jenna presses ‘play’ for ‘The Truman Show’. “I… um, need to pee.”

It’s quiet for a moment- Tyler raises his eyebrows in that signature ‘Tyler’ kind of way, and Josh and Jenna exchange looks. Pete just says, muffled against Jenna, “So go! Have fuuuuun,” and Patrick can hear the smirk in his voice.

When he gets to the bathroom, he shuts the door and splashes water on his face, hoping that it’ll clear all of the shit in his head. But then he looks into the mirror, and it all comes back to him- Pete, Pete, Pete. Pete and his nagging and the way that he laughs in Patrick’s ear and jumps on him to wake him up. When he rolls into bed and kisses Patrick with tongue and licks his nose and tells him knock knock jokes, and walks Penny early in the morning so that Patrick can shower late.

But that’s the kind of person that Pete is- Pete’s nice to everyone if he likes them enough, Pete offered to help Tyler pack, and he’s driven Travie and his niece to the ER when she had an allergy attack, and Pete just does considerate shit because he loves his friends. He doesn’t love Patrick, it’s just all in Patrick’s head.

And Patrick doesn’t want to like Pete either. He likes money and he likes giving tattoos and he likes having a tattoo parlor, and nowhere in that equation is a boyfriend that could get in the way of that, of Patrick running around trying to keep the parlor in business. They say the first 5 years are the worst, and Patrick’s barely managing the 3 he has.

 _God_ , he thinks, _talk about not loving something until it’s not yours_.

“Yo, can I come in?” Pete interrupts his train of thought, knocking on the door. “Wait… are you touching yourself right now?”

“What? No! And yeah, just- give me a sec,” he says, wiping his face and hands on one of Pete’s towels before he opens the door. Pete pushes his way in, and leans against the closed door with crossed arms. “Alright, what’s wrong? What, you don’t like Jenna?”

“I like Jenna,” Patrick stresses, but Pete shakes his head like he doesn’t believe it. “You suck at lying. Your face gets red like ketchup.”

“I’m not lying,” Patrick lies, “I like her. I just, I’m just tired. Busy day at the shop without you, Joe doesn’t entertain Brendon and Hayley like you, and they just piss him off, and then he complains to me, and then I have to take care of them, and,” he sighs, “I don’t know. Just tired.”

“Then take a nap.” Pete says, rolling his eyes. “And yeah, I invited you over to chill and watch a movie and eat some wings, I don’t know why you have to be so annoying.”

“I’m being annoying?!” Patrick asks, and Pete throws his hands out, “Yes! God! You’re, like, glaring daggers at her! I like Jenna! She’s really nice and she actually likes me and listens to me!”

“The fuck does that mean?” Patrick asks again, and Pete raises his eyebrows. “The fuck do you think it means? It means exactly what the fuck I said.”

And Patrick’s about to scream back, because he has _a lot_ to say, how Pete claims that they're best friends and yet he doesn't say anything about him dating Jenna or whatever the fuck, but he forces himself to calm down a little. He takes a deep breath, and lets his shoulders drop. “Sorry, I just- I just had a long day. I’m being an asshole, I know.”

“Yeah,” Pete takes Patrick’s hands in his, and he gives him a sheepish smile, “you kinda are. Just- come out, alright? We’ll watch the movie and you’ll have some food. If Tyler doesn’t _fuckin_ ’ eat it all. And we can just say we were making out the whole time, they don’t have to know that you were being a little pissbaby in here.”

But Pete says this with that same smile, so Patrick can’t help but smile too. “Shut up. And Jenna won’t mind that you said that?”

Pete turns and swings the door open before he wraps an arm around Patrick’s shoulder. “Huh? Oh. I dunno. Wait, can we discuss the fact that Tyler calls 'The Truman Show' 'Truman Burbank' because... there are just way too many things wrong about that."

* * *

It’s 10:04 in the morning on a Monday, and Tyler’s fixing up the playlist as usual- he hums ‘Lucky’ under his breath as he wipes down the counters where the cash registers are, _‘I’m lucky I’m in love with my best friend…_ ’

It’s almost hilarious to Tyler that his life could change so drastically in 3 weeks, he’d move out of the house and live with his boyfriend’s best friend, and he’d be planning a new tattoo for Josh to do the next time he has off, and all of that could happen, but he still finds himself here, listening to the same playlist and cleaning the same counters. It’d almost be sweet if Tyler weren’t dying to get the hell out of there.

His music’s… his music. It’s not necessarily going anywhere, he has stuff up on SoundCloud, but… he’s starting from the ground up. There’s not even an album yet. He can’t even play the drums right. There aren’t any concerts. There’s just Tyler in his room, pissing Pete the fuck off. Or so Tyler thinks- every time Pete assures him that he doesn’t care, that he’s already up and that he kinda likes Tyler’s music, Tyler can’t find it in himself to believe him. He’s trying to find it in himself to be like… a bank teller, or something. Or maybe dentistry? Dental assistant? He could totally yell at people for not flossing. 

“Are your friends coming?” One of Tyler’s co-workers asks, just as Tyler tosses the rag under the counter, and he shrugs, wiping his hands on his pants. “I think? They usually do, I’ll tell Brendon not to jump over the counter this time, I _swear_ I didn’t think he was actually going to attempt to drink sweet and sour sauce.”

Monday’s are usually the days that Hayley and Brendon and now Maddy usually hang out at Wendy’s- albeit, they usually come a little later, since they can’t skip class every week. It was a little strange at first, listening to stories about Brendon and Ryan’s underage sex life with his little sister laughing along with them, but Tyler was kind of happy that they all had become friends, that he actually could see her without the awkwardness of approaching his family at church… or coming over while his parents weren’t home.

“ _Dude, Maddy’s my girl!”_ Hayley said to him, with her arm draped around Maddy’s shoulder the first time they brought Maddy to Wendy’s with them- she looked a little green in the face, probably from Brendon’s driving, “ _I had no idea she was your sister! How did your brother end up so shitty?!_ ”

Yeah, Tyler wonders the same thing.

His co-worker laughs in response to the Brendon comment, and she claps Tyler on the shoulder right before she goes back to her station at the drive-through window. “Okay, thanks. We need all of the sweet and sour sauce we can get.”

True- Tyler’s mostly been sneaking extra containers to bring home because Pete uses it when he makes sweet and sour chicken.

“Lucky” transition into “Locked Out Of Heaven” almost seamlessly to Tyler at this point, and he plays on his phone at his station, the cash registers, as he waits for customers to start coming in. He bounces a little on his toes, hums ‘ _Yeah, you make me feeeeeeeeeeel like, I’ve been locked out of heeeeeeaven_ ’, and then “Locked Out Of Heaven” transitions into another song, and so on and so forth.

It’s only when the door opens and the bell chimes, does Tyler get pulled out of his lazy One Direction trance- “Live While We’re Young” plays over the speakers when Tyler glances at the time- 10:30. It’s about 10 minutes earlier than the crew usually gets there, and when he glances at the door, catches the smug kind of smirk on his younger brother’s face, it’s too late to take a break.

He tries to pretend like he totally wasn’t dancing in his spot to One Direction, and he clears his throat a little as Zack makes his way to the counter. 50 bucks says Zack isn’t there to order anything, but rather he only came to see the look on Tyler’s face, to watch him squirm with discomfort.

“What can I get you?” Tyler asks, before Zack even makes it to the white counters, and Zack laughs a little, malicious intent crystal clear, “Dude, are you serious? No ‘Welcome to Wendy’s?’ or anything? I don’t really feel welcomed here, you know?”

Zack smiles- straight white teeth mock Tyler. He takes a deep breath, puts on that customer smile that his boss says he wants him to practice in the mirror at home, and he says “Hi, _Zack_. Welcome to Wendy’s. What can I get you?”

Zack stuff his hands in his pockets. “How about a conversation. How’ve you been, big bro? How’s life on your own treating you?”

Trick questions. He tells himself that every family does this, ask questions that are supposed to sound genuine even though the intent is malevolent, but it's probably not true. Everything that Tyler says will be twisted. ‘Life on my own is good’ Tyler could say, and so easily, Zack could turn around and tell his parents ‘Tyler said that he likes living without you guys, and that you guys should burn in hell, and, uh, that he hopes that you die a painful death. Word for word, I swear…’.

Tyler grits his teeth, pretends its part of his smile. “Fine. Listen, you gotta order something, you can’t just stand-“ “What, you’re gonna call the cops on me for just checking up on you like Mom and Dad wanted me to? They’re worried, man. Think you’re living underneath some bypass, doing cocaine with your… y’know.”

“My boyfriend?” Tyler asks, and Zack nods, scratching the back of his neck. “Yeah, something like that.”

Bubblegum pop plays over the speakers, as Tyler shifts on his feet awkwardly. “It’s not a curse word, or anything. The word ‘boyfriend’,” Tyler says quietly, “And I’m not out doing cocaine, _by the way_. Since Mom and Dad can’t make the difficult trip here. To Wendy’s. 20 minutes away from the house.”

Tyler’s not using cocaine now, but he wishes he were. This conversation would probably be a lot more fun.

Zack is quick with this one, it crashes like water from a waterfall, Tyler’s just the guy in the rowboat trying to get away from the current, “Yeah, well, no one wanted to make the trip to this shit hole. No offense, or anything.”

Tyler doesn’t even really reply, he just sighs, and shifts on his feet. What he would do to have Josh here right now… not for Josh to beat Zack up for him or anything, but for him just to be there. The pink hair, the nose ring that shines when the light hits it in the morning, comforts Tyler more than anything in the world.

“Okay,” Tyler says, “can you order something now? You have to order something. I can’t stand around and do nothing.”

“But there’s no one here,” Zack says, grinning, “so what else _would_ you be doing?”

“There’s always something to do,” Tyler says, his hands balling up into fists underneath the counter, he wonders briefly how quickly he would be fired if he punched Zack in the face, “it’s not like—it’s not, like… can you order something?”

Zack crosses his arms. “You guys serving breakfast right now?”

Tyler nods.

And despite the fact that Zack asked if they were serving breakfast or not, he completely ignores Tyler’s pleas to just order something, and he continues to talk- “So, where are you living now?”

“…across town? What, you gonna come visit? Knock on the door first, my boyfriend and I might be doing it on the couch and I know how much you hate gay people doing gay things.”

“I’m not homophobic, first of all, so-“ “ _You’re_ not homophobic? You’re not- you’re- _you_?”

Zack clenches his jaw, thinking long and hard for a defense. No one likes to really admit that they’re shitty, Tyler knows that his family is homophobic, it’s nothing new. But Zack looks like Tyler just accused him of kicking puppies in his free time. “I don’t hate gay people, I just don’t like it thrown in my fucking face all the time.” Zack says finally, but Tyler stopped listening a while ago.

“Yeah, alright. What would you like to order? Do you want a picture menu? I have a picture menu.” Tyler says, reaching down and grabbing one of the kid menus, and he all but throws it at him. “The breakfast stuff is at the top,” he says, pointing to the breakfast section, “so… order something, or else you’re gonna have to leave.”

It’s beyond embarrassing- part of Tyler doesn’t blame Zack for not even wanting to get anything, but the other part of Tyler, is shaking with anger. He doesn’t get it, get how Zack thinks he could just barge in where Tyler is vulnerable, at work, where he can’t do anything to Zack, and expect a conversation, expect everything to be okay. He would at least hope that Zack was a little smarter than that, considering all Zack does is parade around his SAT score… even though he took it years ago.

Zack points at sausage egg sandwich wordlessly, and Tyler punches that order in. “Is that it?” Tyler asks, and Zack sneers at him as he pulls out his wallet, “Yeah, that’s it.”

Except now there’s the waiting. Tyler prays that Hayley and Brendon walk in soon, hopes that Maddy didn’t come with them, because he’s not sure what Zack would report home. He’s like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern- fuckin’ clueless servants to Claudius and Gertrude. Except he has the stupidity of both of them combined. _See_ , Tyler thinks bitterly, _I can make literary references too, Zack. And your references don't even make sense when you make them._

“Tyler, bro,” Zack pipes up again, Tyler wants to repeatedly slam his head into the freezer, “you know we’re just looking out for you. When you inevitably have to move back in because you have no fuckin’ money, we’re home, waiting with open arms. Really. But have fun sucking dick for rent, or whatever the fuck you’re managing to do.”

“So, are you sure you don’t want some orange juice, or something?” Tyler asks, trying to keep his voice steady, “It’s on me. Really.”

Anything to drive Zack away.

And Zack’s about to take Tyler up on that offer, free stuff is free stuff, but then the bell chimes on the door right on time, and Brendon’s unmistakable voice seems to ring throughout the entire store, bouncing off the walls, “That’s why water based lube is the best! When he’s fuckin’ you, you want to feel everything, you know? And you can use it on toys, cause it’s not silicone. I mean, silicone doesn’t come off in the shower, and water based lube does but… in life, we all have to make sacrifices.”

Ryan hums, nodding along. Hayley and Maddy aren’t really even listening, even though Brendon’s talking to them, and Tyler has to hide his laugh with a cough when he sees the look on Zack’s face- it’s not even disgust, it’s more shock than anything.

“Wait… are you talking to us?” Maddy asks Brendon, as the realization dawns on her that Brendon wouldn’t be talking to himself about the lube that he uses, and Brendon whips around to glare at her, “Was I not? What the hell? Have I been talking to myself this whole time?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” Hayley says, grinning, “but we all know you love the sound of your own voice.”

They make their way to the counters, and only then do they notice Zack- he’s sort of hiding, closed in on himself because he doesn’t want to interact with the people who barged in talking about lube at 11 o’clock in the morning. But then Maddy and Tyler glance at each other, she looks back over to the shape of Zack, he’s still trying to process information that, okay, isn’t that big of a deal, and when she looks back over to Tyler, Tyler nods.

“Zack?” Maddy asks, resting a hand on his shoulder, and he jolts like he’s been electrocuted. “Maddy?!” He says, and when he turns around, Maddy’s standing between Hayley and Brendon. Ryan’s on Brendon’s other side, texting on his phone, but Hayley and Brendon are glaring at Zack because they’ve heard tons of horror stories about him.

And no one likes it when a bunch of teenagers stare them down- Zack’s eyes travel from Maddy, back over to Brendon, and back to Maddy. “These are your friends?” Zack asks, and _now,_ disgust drips from his words.

“Yeah, we’re her friends  _and_ Tyler’s friends.” Brendon says, “Who the fuck are you?”

Zack’s order is ready, so Tyler looks away from the action for two seconds to go get it. He stuffs the bag with napkins as Zack says, “I’m her older brother, and- Maddy, can I talk to you for a second?”

Maddy glances over to Tyler, Tyler shakes his head, and she opens her mouth to say something to Zack, but then Hayley interrupts her by stepping in front of him. “Hi, I’m Hayley. I think we all got off on the wrong impression? So, let me just-“

She swings her arm forward, and almost has to jump up to do it, but she punches him straight in the face, right on the cheek. Brendon’s eyes widen, Ryan looks up from his phone to hear what _that_ noise was, and Maddy has to cover her mouth.

Tyler winces- he could feel the impact of the punch just from the sound of it, and his first thought is ‘Holy shit, I hope he doesn’t punch her back’

The store is still empty, there was no one else around, Hayley’s still under 18, but now Tyler’s thinking about the police coming, and Hayley getting arrested and being sent to juvie, and holy shit, Tyler doesn’t want Hayley to get arrested, and-

“Don’t come back here and bother my friends again. Okay? Thanks. I took, like, 10 years of karate, I could probably crack your fucking skull if I wanted to,” Hayley says conversationally, her hands are still raised in case Zack wanted to hit her back, but he’s frozen still, frozen with shock. Because he’s 6 feet tall, but this 5’2 teenager just punched him in the face.

“Um… your food is ready?” Tyler says, pushing the brown paper bag forward. “There’s napkins in there. If you need them.”

Zack is silent, he’s not bleeding but there’s already a bruise forming on his cheek that Tyler can barely see because Zack didn’t turn to get the order, he just grabbed it and sped-walked on out the door.

“Don’t let the- no, actually, let the door hit you on the way out!” Brendon calls out, just to say something, just to be part of the action, and when Zack leaves the store, they all look at each other with confused glances.

“Wait, that was it? Are you serious?” Hayley asks, shaking her head, “I was expecting a fight or something. He just left? That’s… that’s kind of sad, I almost wanna run back and get him.”

“Don’t do that,” Tyler says, not getting that Hayley’s joking, but they’re not necessarily talking to Tyler as much as they’re talking to each other.

“He’s probably still in shock,” Maddy explains, shaking her head, “plus, he doesn’t hit girls. So I guess he didn’t know what to do? I mean, you hit him _hard_. I think he got the message- don’t come back here and bother us, and don’t bother Tyler.”

“Such a gentleman.” Ryan says sarcastically, and Brendon nods with him, “Yeah, what the hell! I mean, I’m glad he has _some_ priorities set, but… wow. That was kind of pathetic.”

“Well,” Maddy says, a small grin growing on her face, “pathetic actions for a pathetic person?”

“Tell me about it!” Hayley says, shaking her hand a little. “Shit, that hurt.”

“I thought you took 10 years of karate?” Tyler asks, and Hayley looks confused for a second, before she shakes her head, “Oh, yeah, no, I just pulled that out of my ass. You bought that?”

Tyler very much nods, even _he’s_ in a state of shock, Hayley just punched a guy in the face for him, for his sister, and risked getting punched back or worse. Just because she cared about them.

And even as Brendon attempts to get across the counter to get more Sweet and Sour Sauce (“You could just _ask_ , Brendon, I’m not gonna say no,” “Yeah, but where’s the fun in that?”), and Ryan tells Tyler that he looks like he’s always constipated (“Babe, I never noticed that, but you’re _right_ ,”) and Hayley asks for some ice for her hand, not because it hurts but because she wants to ‘freeze off all of the Zack germs’, Tyler’s really, really, really, really, _really_ , thankful he met them, that they stalked him at work and demanded to know what was going on when Tyler was being stupid, that they set him back up with Josh, that they convinced him that he had to get out of his toxic house, for everything. Even for the lube advice… though he’d never admit that one.

* * *

Josh is totally catcher, Tyler’s totally pitcher… but in the position, they’re in, Tyler’s sitting in Josh’s lap, his knees on either side of Josh’s bare chest with his ass over Josh’s crotch and a pencil tucked behind his ear… yeah, exceptions can be made. Josh is half-hard, they both know it, and sometimes Tyler will take a break from doodling on the sketchpad resting on Josh’s chest to squirm around, just to hear Josh groan.

“Okay… how about…” Tyler untucks the pencil from behind his ear and begins to draw. From what Josh can see it, it’s just a black rectangle, shaded in by the pencil. But then he takes the eraser, and starts almost cutting away at the design. His eyebrows are furrowed, and he alternates between erasing furiously and filling spaces back in. Finally, he tucks the pencil back in its spot, like Luna Lovegood with her wand, and he holds the sketch up. “Yeah?”

They’ve been here for a while, sitting like this, but it’s the kind of comfortable that just comes so easily with Josh. Tyler raked his hands through Josh’s orangeish-pink hair, and Josh said he was gonna ask Hayley to help him dye it back. Blue, Josh said. Like the blue raspberry slushies.

So, Tyler sketched a blue raspberry slushie, and pointed right over his heart. “Here. Just don’t let the gun hit my nipple? God, can’t imagine that…”

Josh did a couple of flowers, and they made out for 10 minutes after Tyler told him about that fantasy- Josh tattooing roses on his inner thigh before setting the tattoo gun down and sucking Tyler off, slow like they had all the time in the world, slow like Patrick totally wasn’t gonna fire Josh for doing something like that in the room.

None of it really meant anything, the Grouplove lyrics and the little sketches (Tyler drew a little rat with a speech bubble- _‘I’m humble… but not I’m not that humble!_ ’ and when Josh asked what in the fuck that was, Tyler said, with a grin, that it was a modest mouse), until Tyler shows him this one. The atmosphere in the room shifts, it comes to a standpoint, and Tyler bites his lip in a less ‘sexy’ kind of way, and more of a ‘don’t laugh at me’ kind of way.

Josh doesn’t really get the sketch though- it looks a little like nothing. Just symbols and triangles and _are those letters_? He sits up a little, Tyler shifts with him, and he asks, “I like it… just, what is it?”

Tyler shrugs in a way that isn’t really a shrug, it’s just a way to make it seem like nothing he says matters. Like his ideas are stupid, or something. “I took Latin in high school, and, um- ‘ _Carpe noctem?_ ’”

Josh is kinda clueless. He shakes his head, glancing back down at the design again, and now he sees it- written within the black space from the pencil, Tyler had carved out the words. A ‘C’ and an ‘A’ on the top, it’s hard to see if you don’t know what you’re looking for, the ‘R’, the ‘P’, and the ‘E’ following it, the words are blocky yet they look like they were done with purpose, with care. ‘N-O-C-T-E-M’ goes over the next two lines, and it ends there. Tyler turns the paper on its side, and he presses it up against his forearm.

“Kinda... kinda like here? It means ‘seize the night’. I was… kind of thinking about my life, how I was waiting for all of this to happen to me, moving out and having a boyfriend that was less of...” He trails off for a moment, his face is a little red like he’s embarrassed, “of, like, a fuck-buddy that I was afraid to fall in love with because of my parents and more like _you_ , someone I can actually see myself with, someone who I would introduce to my parents if we ever mend things, which I _want_ to. I like having control of my life now, no parents to tell me I can’t get a tattoo and if I come home late there’s no lecture. I like knowing that I can finally seize the night. I can finally do all of these things that I’ve been waiting forever to do, that I was too afraid to do. Does that make sense? I feel like I’m babbling.”

“Nah,” Josh says, “it makes sense, I really like it. And I like this design too- very, uh, unique.”

Tyler rolls his eyes playfully, and he twirls a piece of Josh’s hair on his finger as he says, “Yeah, whatever. It’d look too corny, I think. If I just got it written out normally. So you’ll do it for me? Next week? That way I have a whole day to lie in bed and drink Advil.”

Josh nods, tossing the pad over on the other side of the bed, and he leans back against the pillows. “Yeah,” he says, “it’s a date.”

Tyler leans in when Josh cups his face and brings him down for a kiss, and it’s supposed to be innocent, as innocent as a kiss could get with Tyler straddling him, but then Tyler rolls his hips a little, shifting in Josh’s lap, and Josh opens his mouth, lets Tyler in, and then that’s when all discussion of tattoos are thrown out of the window.

Josh groans as Tyler continues to roll his hips, slow like he knows exactly what he’s doing, and Tyler laughs when Josh’s hands move south, when he tries to pull Tyler’s shirt off even though Tyler’s hands are still woven in Josh’s hair. “Let me,” Josh rasps out, but Tyler does it for him- the shirt comes flying off and it knocks something from the dresser onto the ground, but then Tyler gasps out, “You wanna? I’ll be on top,” and then whatever fell is forgotten as well. Everything in the background, Pete and Patrick in the other room arguing quietly in the other room, the cars outside, the music notes from the song that they’re playing, something Gorillaz, floats into the air and pops like soap bubbles, everything melts away until it’s just this- the two of them making out, Tyler’s tongue in Josh’s mouth, the way that Tyler has to pull away to breathe but also to laugh because Josh can’t reach the drawer with the lube and condoms.

Josh gives up when Tyler’s hands move down, when he starts to scratch at his chest, a silent ‘pay attention to me’, and Josh _does,_ he pushes Tyler down against the bed, hands against Tyler’s shoulders to hold him down, and he leans down to bite over smooth chest, not marred with all of their tattoo ideas. He sucks over where Tyler said he’d put the blue slushie one if he were ever drunk and stupid enough to do it- Tyler gasps like he’s never been touched before, one leg hooks over Josh’s waist, and he moans pathetically when Josh’s teeth graze over his nipple. “Fuck,” Tyler chokes out, “me on bottom, I wanna-- like this, I want it like this. First for everything.”

Josh laughs for real, he shakes with it, and when he looks up, Tyler’s looking down at him with half-resignation and half-amusement. “Shut up,” Josh says jokingly, but all of the grins and laughs cease as he says in a low voice, one that makes Tyler feel like… like a fucking puddle, or something, he doesn’t feel like a person, he wants to melt into Josh, “maybe you’ll like it. Anyways, you totally have me whipped.”

One of his hands travels past the hem of Tyler’s sweatpants and boxers and he wraps a dry, warm hand around Tyler’s dick, just as he sucks down on another spot. Tyler’s hips stutter, and he quite literally _squeaks_ out, “Do I really?!”

Unfortunately, the beginning of something that could have been great, Tyler’s babbling helplessly about ‘You feel s-so, you feel so _good_ , you, _Josh_ , oh God,’ gets interrupted by something so… not so great. The door from Pete’s room slams so hard that the both of them stop what they’re doing and give each other odd looks. Josh’s hand in still in Tyler’s pants, and it’s until they hear Pete’s telltale guttural scream that Josh pulls his hand out.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?-“ Pete screams, you can hear everything through these walls, “-WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK I AM?”

Tyler’s hands move up to his face, and he rubs at his eyes. Josh’s boner is pretty much gone. They shut off the music to hear better, it’s like a horribly bad car crash, whatever is happening out there, and they can’t look away. Or listen away. But even without the music- everything is crystal clear, they’re having a screaming match out there.

“What else was I supposed to think?!” Patrick yells back at him, and there’s a silence, Josh braces himself, “WHAT WAS- PATRICK, SHE’S _GAY_.”

They exchange glances again- Tyler mouths ‘Jenna?’ and Josh mouths back ‘I think? Why would they be fighting about her?’

“Can you fucking hear me out?” Patrick asks, Josh feels genuinely bad for him, it’s hard to tame Pete once he gets going, everything turns red for Pete, there’s no calming him down, it’s all rash decisions and bottles of whiskey. “You guys are practically making out on the couch, you’re in her lap, you guys bond over- why the fuck do you even care?! Why do you care what I think, I thought your philosophy or whatever bullshit you like to spew is that you’re some, you’re some macho guy that can get anyone to fuck you. ‘Oh, Patrick,’” Patrick says, he says this in a voice that supposed to mock Pete, he sounds like a whiny teenager, and Josh can’t even imagine the look on Pete’s face right about now, “’I’m a compulsive cheater, I’d cheat on you first, I’ll have sex with anyone that can stand being around me for more than 10 minutes’! So fuck you, don’t fucking accuse me for assuming that you two were together!”

“If no one can stand being around me, If I’m so fucking deplorable and you hate my guts, then get the fuck out of my house! Get the fuck out!” Pete yells back, but it’s quieter now, Josh doesn’t even want to be here, because he can hear it in Pete’s voice, he’s just hurt. It’s so awkward, Tyler’s eyebrows are raised, like he can’t believe what’s happening either.

“Fuck, Pete, just, fuck. I didn’t mean that, come on,” Patrick says, Josh can so perfectly see Patrick reaching for Pete, “I didn’t mean that, I’m just angry, let’s-“

“Just leave,” Pete says, Josh brings a hand to his forehead, “just- just get _out_ Patrick.”

It’s quiet, but the door hasn’t been open, Patrick didn’t leave yet. Tyler knows what Pete crying sounds like, and this sounds like it. Tyler’s shoulders slump, and when Josh holds his hand out, Tyler takes it in his.

“Pete,” Patrick says, almost through a laugh, like a very shocked and unsure kind of laugh, “Pete, come on. I didn’t mean it, I- come on, I’ll take you out, I’ll-“

“I don’t wanna go out!” Pete sobs, “I don’t wanna do that, I don’t- just get out of my face, Patrick, get out of my _face_ , I can’t look at you,” he drags on, Pete’s so dramatic when he’s like this, he can envision one of Patrick’s eye rolls, but when Pete’s like this, pouring his soul out and crying and throwing himself around the room, it’s not necessarily an act. It’s everything he feels, everything that’s bottled up inside that he hides with one of his stupid grins. “I’m so in love with you, you fucking idiot! Okay?! Is that what it’ll take for you to _LEAVE_?! Can I drive you away now?! What else will get you to leave?”

“ _Pete_ ,” Patrick tries to say, but Pete’s louder, “I’m so fucking head over heels for you, you- everything you do, Patrick, everything you _do_ , even when you leave at night and when you say that we’d never work because you’re busy, and I’m immature, I’m still in love with you, so just, so just leave if you hate me that much, because I can’t even- even with that stupid lost look on your face,” Pete’s breath comes in heaves, Tyler’s staring dead at the blanket on the bed, it’s too late to intervene but it’s a fucking mess out there, “even then! So just, just _leave_ , Patrick.”

They can’t really hear anything else, save for Pete’s labored breath, though there are hints of footsteps and of Patrick saying something, but it’s too soft to hear through the walls, and after a moment the door clicks shut.

Footsteps approach Tyler’s door almost immediately after, and Tyler and Josh are already shifting over to make space for Pete on the bed. The door opens, Pete’s head peaks in, his face is red and wet with tears. “Can I…” he trails off, his words sound like croaks, and Tyler nods. He shuts the door behind in, he stumbles over to the bed, and he collapses onto it. A spot on Josh’s pants gets soaked in tears, Tyler’s hands rub at Pete’s back, like what he used to have to do to Jay when he was little and when he couldn’t sleep, and the room stays quiet even after Pete finally tires himself out, and falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi all!! so sorry ---- ------ -- ---- (fill in the blanks lol) AP week started on monday and :/ i took one but i have another one left and jfjdsjsdkgjdkjgsg i wanna die. i've taken them before but its still so unnerving and just ksdfksfkf fuck!! i hate AP!!! i dont know what music IS how am i supposed to take ap music theory!??!?!?!!?!?
> 
> but also i would be lying if i said that i was spending my whole 2 weeks studying because :/ ive been watching jersey shore nonstop. oh yeahhhhhh procrastination yeahhhhhh. anyways- one more update left!!!! wooooooo! will pete and patrick figure their shit out? will brendon and hayley finally get tattoos??? will josh and tyler break up?????? find out next week on the jersey shore!!! i mean, find out probably not next week cause im shit at updating on the stick to you forever fic!!!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOWKEY! NO PRESSURE! JUST HANG WITH ME AND WEATHER!  
> full offense 2017 is SAVED thanks to PARAMORE! my favorites are constantly changing, but right now it's 'pool' 'grudges' 'no friend' 'rose colored boy' 'caught in the middle' and 'idle worship'  
> (so all of them???)
> 
> no friend is.... wow so dark? but i love it holy SHIT! it made me question writing fanfic for a good 2 hours though lol. i love the part where its like 'im no savior of yours and you're no friend of mine' and kdjgdsjdsjfsdkfj just fuck! and IDLE WORSHIP SDKFDFK FUCK!!! OHH NO I AINT YOUR HERO YOU'RE WASTING ALL YOUR FAITH ON ME! and goddd i love the little bells in pool andkfsk ok im gonna stop now cause everyone prob wants to read the fic but... after laughter is the best thing to happen to me thanks taylor york and hayley williams and zac farro for saving me (but.... im not putting them on a pedestal or anything.... they're no savior of mine.... right..... fuck...)

Although Tyler has the house to himself on Sunday, his only day off, it feels almost lonely without Pete and his music and his TV shows- when apartment feels hollow, and Tyler is home, he’ll look over from watching Donnie Darko and try to offer someone popcorn, and nothing but the air greets him. Awkward.

That’s why he usually hangs around the tattoo shop after work sometimes- there’s always something to _do_ , especially now that Pete and Patrick are very inconveniently ignoring each other. One of them needs someone to play messenger, and when Josh is working, when Joe just flips Pete off and walks away and tells him ‘It’s not my fuckin’ job’, when Andy opts for lecturing Patrick on the importance of communication, that job normally lands on Tyler.

And Tyler would be lying if he said didn’t love to watch Josh work- sometimes he comes into the back room while Josh is designing and will kiss his shoulders, let Josh melt into him a little, and bite the lobe of his ear just to tease him.

Now, though- now, Tyler is sitting with Travie and Patrick in the front of the shop. Just moments before, Josh and Pete had left to go get lunch, and Patrick had come over to talk about Pete, as usual, that’s all either one of them have been talking about lately, ‘Do you think that I-‘ ‘Was I wrong to-‘ ‘It’s not my fault that-’

“This is bullshit,” Travie says, to Patrick. Tyler’s sitting in Pete’s chair, with his legs propped up the way that Pete usually has them, and he plays with a pencil as he listens in. “Do you realize that? That this is complete utter bullshit?”

Patrick frowns. “I know. I know it is, but I don’t know how to- I don’t- this is Pete, we’re talking about. _Pete_. The most emotional person I know! And I don’t know how to talk to him about this, y’know, he’s gonna think that I just feel sorry for him. And I don’t. I _do_ like him. I just don’t, you know… _feel_ like he does. I’m not good with words. _Clearly_.”

“It’s not a matter of being good with words,” Travie says, “it’s a matter of making up with him before I blow my brains out. You’re acting like teenagers, man, like-”

“Elementary school kids, actually.” Tyler interrupts, looking up from playing mindlessly with the pencil. “You’re acting like 6 year olds.”

Tyler, like everyone else, is becoming increasingly and increasingly tired of the drama. Even Brendon and Hayley, who live for drama, roll their eyes when Pete begins to talk about Patrick. It’s like Ron and Sammie from the Jersey Shore- their relationship problems are only entertaining for 5 episodes at best. But now, everyone’s at the end of Season 3, wondering why the fuck they’re still fighting, why they still have to listen to this.

“Thank you! See, Tyler gets it!” Travie exclaims, before he whips around and he reaches out to shake Patrick’s shoulders, “Trix, I love you, but you’re dead stupid. You haven’t even apologized, man, no matter how many glances you two share, Pete’s never gonna get that you feel like shit about what happened until you tell him.”

Tyler nods, twirling the pencil around with his finger, “Pete thinks that you hate him, and you sitting around ignoring him doesn’t help. Just sayin’.”

“So why the fuck didn’t you ‘just say’ this a week ago?!” Patrick exclaims, balling his fists up. “This is so- it’s not all my fault! No one is getting pissed at Pete for ignoring me right back!”

Tyler and Travie exchange knowing glances. Knowing ‘ _after you confess your love for someone and they ignore you for a whole week after, you’re not likely to go chasing them down’_ glances.

“Patrick,” Tyler says before Travie starts cursing, because he’s definitely getting there, “you know I like you. But… you’re being really senseless right now. Both you guys are wrong, but you should apologize first, since you couldn’t really do that while Pete was… you know."

“Yeah, what Tyler said. With a lot more cursing, though.” Travie says, with a small smile on his face. “You gonna talk to him today, then?”

“What? No!” Patrick says, running his hands through his hair. “I need a day or so, I know that words aren’t everything, but I need to figure everything out. I need to- okay, I’m gonna be in the back, I’m gonna try to write it out, maybe-“

He doesn’t even finish his sentence- he just stalks off to the back room, muttering nonsense under his breath. Tyler and Travie exchange another glance, before Tyler says, lightly, just so that he doesn’t actually explode with anger, “We should just lock em up in a room together so that they actually have to talk.”

He pauses, and then says under his breath, “Although they’d probably just hook up and get in an argument about the right way to put on a condom.”

“There’s a wrong way?” Travie asks, before he brings a hand up to his face, one finger pressed against his chin like he’s thinking. “That’s not a bad idea, though... the locking them in a room thing. If they can’t run away from their problems-“

“then they’re gonna kill us when they come out? Yeah, I-”

“-then they _have_ to talk to each other. Check Patrick’s schedule?”

This seems like a bad idea, a very, very, very _bad_ idea. Putting Patrick's temper and Pete's dramatics in one room and _locking_ it? Patrick would probably fire the both of them if they actually worked there, but they don’t, and judging from the look on Travie’s face, that’s what makes all the difference. 

“Uhhhhhhhh,” Tyler says, shifting through an open calendar lying on the desk, he brings it close to his face and he squints to look at the events written in Pete’s shit handwriting. Everything is marked in different colors, and there are some idle doodles on the side of it, but Tyler's only focused on the words written in bright red- **RICKY: 4:00PM** \- “It says that, uhhhh, he doesn’t have another appointment for another..." he glances over to the clock on the wall, and he looks back at the book. "2 hours.”

“Perfect.” Travie replies back, with a huge mad scientist grin plastered on his face. “ _Perfect_. Now we just have to come up with a way to get them into the same room…”

They sit in silence for a moment, thinking.

Tyler still believes this a bad idea, but there’s no harm in trying- right? What’s the worst that can happen? Pete and Patrick stop talking? With the way that they’re carrying on, that seems impossible. And Tyler knows Pete, knows that Pete will break after a couple of minutes. He knows Pete can be dramatic, but he can't imagine Pete glaring at Patrick for a whole 2 hours. And his phone is going to have to run out of battery soon enough, and-

“Easy.” Tyler says after a moment. “If Pete’s on his phone, he’s… like, dead to the world. We just tell him we need something in the back room, and the second he gets in there, we just… wait, do you have the lock?”

He doesn’t even wait for a response- he pushes the chair back a little, and he rummages through the drawers, stuffed with different papers and pamphlets, Tyler scrunches up his nose as he moves condoms over to the side, there’s an eyeliner pencil and a mirror in there too, and the mental image of Pete lounging in the chair with a mirror in one hand and the eyeliner in the other is so funny that Tyler almost chokes on a laugh. He goes through some files, packages of highlighters and colored pens, and right when he’s about to give up, he’s on the last drawer, he feels a key ring all the way at the bottom. “Shit, I think I found it? There’s a little masking tape on- yeah, this is it!”

For what seems like the first time in the forever, luck seems to be playing in Tyler’s favor.

* * *

“So… today is the big day, huh?” Pete asks Josh, as he brings a hand up to rub at his eyes. He’s dead tired, he just spent the whole walk to pick up Chinese food and halfway back ranting about Patrick, and that takes energy out of a person… apparently. He wants to curl up with Penny on the couch in the back room and nap the day away. Dream about someone, something that doesn’t have glasses and blondish redish brownish hair.

It sounds super co-dependent and unhealthy, but not talking to Patrick feels gray. He’s so sleepy these days, the smell of the food is sweet and smoky enough to lure him into unconsciousness, the weather is warm, the heat is blanket. Nothing feels real or alive, the flowers that they walk by don’t seem as vibrant as they really are. He’s in the worst type of funk. He should exercise, maybe go out, get laid, _something_ , but all he does is work and study and go home and lie in bed watching reruns of Sex and the City.

“Wait… huh?” Josh asks- truthfully, he’s been blocking out most of what Pete was babbling about. It’s the same shit, Josh is only human. ‘ _Patrick blah blah blah, I write poetry every night about blah blah blah, I feel like blah blah blah, and I think that Patr- blah blah blah’_

“Are you even…” Pete begins to say, about to start cursing, but he just drops his shoulders and sighs. “I was saying, today’s the big day. Y’know, Brendon’s birthday.”

The day that everyone (no one) was waiting for: Brendon’s 18th birthday. Over the course of the week, Brendon had been coming in, meeting with Josh and sitting with him, coming up with a design. In the end, after the ‘ _yeah, don’t get Ryan’s name tattooed, I know that you’re, like, gonna get married and have a billion babies together, but please, please, don’t’_ and the ‘ _I refuse to tattoo the Glee logo on your face’_ , they came up something good: hibiscus flowers next to piano keys.

Josh was _excited_ even, he had shown Brendon the final design yesterday, and Brendon almost blew out Josh’s eardrums with how pumped he was to finally, finally get a tattoo. And Hayley, who stood next to him, crossed her arms over her chest and she promised Josh that the second she turned 18, she was coming too.

“Oh, shit. Yeah, I know,” Josh says, picking up on Pete’s agitated mood, “I have all of it planned out, but _still_. Kinda thought he’d be 17 forever.”

“Yeah, well,” Pete replies, before he shoves his hands in his pockets. “We should have picked up some extra napkins for Hayley, she’s probably pissed beyond belief.”

This is strangely an overstatement- when they get back to the parlor, they’re greeted to the whole crew, Maddy and Ryan included. There are about 20 balloons, there’s a container full of cupcakes that Tyler’s digging into, and Brendon’s wearing a tiara that’s most definitely marketed towards women. But what’s most surprising is how supportive Hayley is being, she’s not angry or sad, she’s just excited. “Wooooo!” she cheers when she sees Pete, “you brought us food?!”

“You? I brought _me_ food.” Pete says, and he tries to get away from all the commotion, he just wants to nap, Tyler wants to hang around the parlor so much, let _him_ work the desk, but then Brendon gets up in his face, shoving an I.D in his face. “I’m legal, _BIIIITCH_ , HOW YOU LIKE ME NOW?!"

He flaps the I.D in his face for a couple more seconds, just in case Pete didn't see it the first time, before he pushes Pete away to claw at Josh's shirt. Tyler raises his eyebrow at this.

“Joshhhh,” Brendon says, “can we just do it now? I know you have to eat and everything, but Ryan and I wanna have legal sex, and-“

He doesn’t even have to finish his sentence, Josh already knows where he’s going. He drops the food on the counter, he locks eyes with Tyler and Tyler nods, pulling the food closer, and he lets Brendon lead the way. “After you,” Josh says, shaking his head, mostly at himself. Brendon grins as he walks towards Josh’s room, and the whole ensemble follows him- Hayley. Ryan, Maddy, and the 20 balloons.

And then there were 3- Pete runs his hands through his hair, pulling on it a little as he says, “hey, listen, Tyler, can you watch over for a little longer? I need a fuckin’ nap.”

Travie nudges Tyler’s leg with the tip of his foot. “Oh, yeah, sure,” Tyler says, “No prob. Back room?”

Pete looks up from picking Josh, Travie, Tyler, and Patrick’s food from out of the bag. “Huh? Oh… _yeah_? You want me to fuckin’ sleep on the floor?”

Tyler throws his hands up, and tries his absolute hardest not to grin, to give away the plan. The key jingles a little in Travie’s pocket as he shakes his leg up and down in anticipation. “Just asking!”

Pete rolls his eyes, _very_ visibly, and marches off to the back room with his food without another word.

Tyler and Travie watch very closely, Travie tip-toes out of his seat, and the second that Pete swings the door open, Tyler feels his heart drop to his stomach, he almost screams ‘HURRY!’, but he just sorta balls his fists up and shakes with anticipation. In the end though, about 2 seconds later, he screams “GOOOOO!” for real this time, and right when Pete’s about to walk back out, Tyler can see the red on his shirt, Travie dives for the door, and presses his weight against it, there’s some banging on the door, Tyler’s not even really sure what he’s screaming right now, and Josh swings _his_ door open, sticks his head out, to see what’s happening, and Travie locks the door quickly, turning the key until he hears a click.

Tyler’s phone rings- it’s Patrick.

“Um… hi?” Tyler says, hesitantly, in the background Travie’s screaming “WORK! YOUR! SHIT! OUT! OR! _YOU’RE_! NOT! COMING! OUT!”

“Hi.” Patrick says, and Travie’s yelling echoes from real life through Patrick’s phone. “I don’t know what you guys are planning to do here, but it’s not funny.”

“No one is laughing,” Tyler says, hesitantly, even though Josh, who has picked up on what just happened, is tearing up with laughter, “we told you to talk to him.”

There’s as much silence as possible in this situation. Pete’s screaming back, “WAIT, ARE YOU FUCKIN’- TRAVIE, COME ON, OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR” and Travie’s yelling back, “I’M REALLY NOT KIDDING.”

“So this is how you do it?” Patrick asks, “you stick the two of us in a room and expect it to be better, like this is some sort of T.V show?”

Patrick is kinda scary when he’s like this- thankfully, he’s on the phone, and he can’t murder Tyler over the phone, so Tyler just says, “Yeah, kind of? Okay, see you in 2 hours, bye.”

And then he just hangs up, just as Pete yells “GO FUCK YOURSELF”, bangs against the door once more, and then Travie shrugs and walks away from the door. He tosses the keys over to Tyler, Tyler catches it, barely, and leaves it back on the counter. “Now, we just pray that this works and that Patrick doesn’t actually drain our blood once he gets back out.”

Josh goes back into his room, still shaking with laughter, and Tyler nods, unwrapping some chopsticks and grabbing his box of chow mein. “Let’s hope. Hey, pass me a napkin?”

* * *

Pete’s chest is still heaving when he finally gives up, when he retires to lie on the couch. So, he’s stuck in a room with Patrick. Big deal. Biiiiiiiiiig deeeeeeaaaallll. He could do this in his sleep, he’s already ignored out in the lobby and in the rooms, he can stand being ignored now. Patrick’s on the floor, mid-design, and he looks how all the angry characters look in cartoons, minus the steam coming out of his ears. His eyes are hard, they’re glaring at a spot on the couch, his knuckles are white, gripped around his phone.

“I’m taking a nap,” Pete says, expecting no response back. “You can take some of my food, I don’t care, don’t wake me up until they open the door.”

But he’s on his back, lying flat, and all of the exhaustion that’s been building up in him, seems to vanish. He can’t even close his eyes, he stares at the ceiling, he waits for Patrick to say something, _say something Patrick_ , and he tries to think of something else, but he can hear Patrick breathing, faintly hear Tyler and Travie laughing, _laughing at me?,_ and-

“Wait, no,” Patrick says, and Pete just knows it’s for him, “don’t sleep yet. I wanna- I mean, it sucks that it has to happen like this but I wanna talk.”

Pete’s still lying down, but he turns his head over to the side so he’s looking over to him. “Okay,” he says, because he doesn’t wanna screw this up. He holds his breath and everything stands still.

“I… I um, I um…” Patrick says, trying to find the right words to describe the total mess in his head, the jumble of emotions, he wipes his palms on his shirt and he takes his glasses off just to put them back on, “you know I’m bad with words, right?”

“I’m worse,” Pete says back, “just talk.”

“Yeah, just- I’m sorry. For everything.” Patrick says, and he shifts a little, so that he’s on his knees next to Pete, who’s still lying on the couch. He’s close enough for Pete to count the acne scars littered across his cheeks, little indents on his face that mimic the freckles on his nose. “You have to- you have to know that I didn’t know, I’m so oblivious, you know, and you’re _you_. You cuddle with everyone, I didn’t know that you felt that way, I would have done everything differently, I wouldn’t have said all of that shit, I—no, wait, I shouldn’t have said all of that to begin with. I love listening to you talk, you don’t annoy me as much as I say you do.”

He adds this part in a quieter voice, but his gaze on Pete never wavers, “You’re one of the best people on the planet. You care about everyone _so much,_ you drop everything for the people you love. I know that this doesn’t excuse any of what I said, but when I’m angry-“

Pete supplies this one for him- “you see red. Yeah, I know. I’m sorry too… for, y’know, being me. Dramatic. I shouldn’t have blown up on you like that either, it was stupid, I told you that I was-“

His voice catches on this, and he pauses for a moment. He can hear Tyler and Travie outside laughing, and Patrick’s eyes are trained on him, they darken the way that they usually do when they hook up, and he’s left breathless for a moment. He just wants to run his hands over Patrick’s face, to _feel_ him.

“-that I was in love with you, and then I just told you to get the fuck out of my face, I didn’t even-“

“But you shouldn’t, you shouldn’t feel guilty, I should feel guilty. I do feel guilty. I feel like… like, I don’t know,” he says, shaking his head, “I don’t know. Everything just feels kinda dull.”

“Gray,” Pete says, “everything feels gray right now. I missed you, I miss just talking to you, I don’t even wanna date you, I just want to be your friend again, you’re my best friend, without you everything feels meaningless.”

Patrick smiles a little without meaning to- Pete and being dramatic go hand in hand, but he sounds so sincere.

“So, you don’t wanna date me?” He asks, still cracking a smile, finally, and Pete turns his head so that he’s looking up at the ceiling, and he’s smiling too, although this quickly turns into a frown by the end of his sentence, “Well yeah, but y’know… I don’t want you to date me out of pity or sympathy. I’d fuckin’ hate that.”

“I don’t want to date you out of pity or sympathy,” Patrick says simply, “I want to date you because I like you. Forget all of that shit about me being jealous, even though I was, I was so fucking jealous seeing you with Jenna-“

“I can’t believe that,” Pete interrupts with a huge grin, like he’s about to burst into giggles, “you thought I was _dating Jenna_!”

“Yes! Yes, and I hated it so much! I kept imagining you, like, eating her out, and-“

Pete actually howls with laughter at this- “ _WHAT_?! You were just torturing yourself then?! Oh my God, I have to tell her that, and-“

“No, noooooooooooo, don’t tell her,” Patrick groans, trying to get back on track with what he wanted to say, “but yeah, just, besides all of that, I don’t even want to justify me liking you through me telling you about how jealous I was because- Pete, you drive me crazy, and for long I thought it was a bad thing, you’re so much more passionate than me about everything, you feel things so hard, and I wanted to just get away from it, you know, focus on the parlor, maybe meet new people, because I was falling so hard for someone who I was just having sex with. And every time you offered to let me stay over, or cook me breakfast, or when you walk Penny for me because I’m too lazy, that… that freaked me out, you know, I’ve never felt so dependent on someone, I didn’t want you to like me, I thought I wanted you to move on so I could move on, and… well, we all know how that went.”

“Yeah,” Pete says, his smile is easy on his face, nothing forced, “you pictured me eating out my gay friend.”

Before Patrick can argue back, that _no, that’s not all I want you to get from this,_ Pete drops one hand from its place on his chest and holds Patrick’s right one in his. “I believe you, Ricks. It’s just so crazy to hear it coming out of your mouth I guess, you’re usually-“

“Cold? Emotionless?” Patrick supplies for him, but Pete waves him off, “no, more like quiet, you usually don’t wear your heart on your sleeve like I do, it’s just strange to not know what you’re thinking from your facial expressions, from the things that you say.”

“Yeah,” Patrick says, and Pete echoes it, “yeah.”

“So do you wanna…” Pete trails off, not even sure where he’s going with it, but his eyes drop down to Patrick’s lips, especially when Patrick uses his free hand to cup Pete’s jaw and bring him close. Pete closes his eyes right as they kiss.

Given their position, it’s a little awkward, Patrick’s still on his knees, and Pete’s still on his back on the couch, but with a little willpower, they make it work- Pete tumbles down to the floor, his nose digs into the side of Patrick’s, but this kiss feels better than any of the times that they fucked, _Patrick’s_ kissing him, _Patrick_ initiated it, _Patrick_ wants _him_ , this isn’t about feeling guilty and feeling bad, because they’re dating…?

“Are we dating? Are we, I mean, we should talk about it, right?” Patrick, this time, asks, and he’s pinned underneath Pete, Pete’s like an overexcited puppy on top of him, he’s unbuckling Patrick’s pants and pressing open mouthed kisses along Patrick’s jaw like he’s never gonna see him again, and he looks up momentarily, “Do you wanna talk about it? I thought we- I mean, we can talk about what we want. So, here goes: I want to date you. I want _you_ , I want your cock in me right now, I want-“

“God,” Patrick chokes over his own spit, Pete’s staring down at him with his intense warm brown eyes and one hand halfway down the waistband of his pants, “I want that too, I want that too, I just- we’re good, right? We’re- we’re dating, you’re my boyfriend, you’re not eating Jenna out, the whole 9 yards?”

Pete dips his head down into Patrick’s shoulder, his forehead is hot against Patrick’s button up, and he laughs the croaky laugh that Patrick knows so well, the one that sounds like comfort and late nights and the view from the spare room, Tyler’s room, at sunrise. “Not eating anyone else out but you.”

In this moment, this is the most romantic thing Patrick had ever been told. He throws his hands over his face, laughs till he's red in the face, and yeah _, Pete’s the one_.

* * *

Tyler’s picking mindlessly at his (now cold) chow mein when Josh, Brendon, and the gang come bursting out of Josh’s room. It’s an explosion of color and commotion, at one moment there’s calm stillness, and the other, Hayley complaining about her platinum hair sticking to the pink and orange balloons, and Brendon and Ryan are deep in ( ** _loud_** ) conversation about _‘Babe, my parents aren’t coming home for another 2 hours, let’s do it in their bed’ ‘Alright!_ ’, and Maddy’s in the back talking with Josh- Josh looks like he’s the poor chaperone that never signed up for any of this.

Well, actually. That’s not so far from the truth.

“Remind me to never let 4 of them in there at once,” Josh says, practically rushing towards Tyler at the front desk, just to catch a break from them. “It was the worst, Maddy’s the only semi-sane one, but when you put the 3 of them with her, it’s…”

...Traumatic enough for him not to be able to finish his sentence.

“Yeah, well… it’s better than having to listen to the sounds of-“ Tyler jerks his head towards the door to the back room, “-for the past hour. I don’t get it, how they have so much stamina. It’s been going on since _forever._ ”

“At least they made up?” Josh offers weakly, before he glances at the clock. “Do you want me to go get them? Patrick’s next appointment is in, like, 10 minutes.”

Tyler nods, giving Josh a short reprieve from watching over the kids, and Josh almost kneels in thanks to him. He makes his way over to the door, and Tyler turns his attention to Brendon, who’s reaching for another one of the cupcakes that Maddy made.

“So, how did it feel?” Tyler asks him, “Getting the tattoo?”

It’s all wrapped up in bandages, but Tyler can still catch glimpses of _color._ Brendon steps forward, he holds out his arm even though it’s bandaged, and he says, “It was great! It hurt a lot, but I was holding Ryan’s hand the entire time, so I think that Ryan has more injuries than me in the grand scheme of things."

Ryan looks up. “Yeah, I do.”

“Yeah, see? But besides that, it was alright. I let Hayley play her favorite music cause I felt bad- I’m a _good friend_ , y’know.”

“You can’t say you’re a good friend if you only do things to brag about them,” Hayley says to him, rolling her eyes a little. Her hair is still sticking to the balloons, and her blue bangs fall into her face, so she blows them out of her face before she says to Tyler, “But it _was_ super nice of him. If I had to sit through 2 hours of Frank Sinatra…”

She grimaces. “Yuck.”

“What? What would you if you had to sit through 2 hours of Frank Sinatra, huh?!” Brendon asks her, getting defensive over his beloved Sinatra, “Now I’m gonna blast it on the way to Ryan’s house, so thanks for the suggestion!”

“I’m not going to _Ryan’s_ house to just to listen to you guys-- you know! Maddy and I are gonna get ice cream!” Hayley says, before she runs her hands through her hair, and shocks Brendon with her static hands. “Ow! That hurts!” “Good!”

Tyler glances over to Maddy, and he mouths ‘ _Ice cream?_ ’, and she just shrugs back, although she’s got this _smile_ on her face, one that he’s never seen on her before.

Ryan pulls the two of them apart with the most tired expression Tyler’s ever seen on anyone ever, not even his father has looked that tired, and he says in his monotone voice, “Can we leave now? My parents are gonna be home soon, and Hayley and Maddy have to go on their date and whatever.”

After Brendon hands Tyler the money in the form in a ton of dollar bills, after Josh has to come over and helps Tyler count the money because he keeps losing track, the 4 of them get set to leave. Maddy grabs the container with the couple of cupcakes left, Hayley ties her hair up so that the balloons stop bothering her, and Brendon takes out his car keys, but then the door to the back room opens, and Pete and Patrick come stumbling out, with tussled hair and with the zipper on Patrick’s pants down, and no one wants to leave before they explain themselves.

Travie, who’s been painting outside, comes in just in time- Pete’s already pushed Tyler off his chair at this point, but the jokes on Pete when he sits down and winces. “So?” Travie asks, looking between Pete and Patrick, Patrick who’s awfully smiley, and Pete, who keeps hiding a grin behind his hand. “What happened?”

“Do you really have to ask that?” Brendon asks Travie, and Travie crosses his arms over his chest, “Nah, but I wanna hear it from these two idiots.”

“You mean after you locked us in a room against our will?” Patrick asks, but he can’t even _play_ mad. “After that?”

“Yeah, after that. Come on, we all heard it.” Travie says, and Pete throws his hands up, “I’m not that loud! I’m not- I’m not that loud, right Patrick? I’m just, just _enthusiastic_!”

Patrick doesn’t reply to that- Brendon does. “Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt,” he sing-songs, and Pete rolls his eyes at him.

“Can you guys hurry up? My parents are gonna be home in 2 hours,” Ryan says, and when Patrick raises his eyebrows in confusion, Hayley explains it to him as she shakes her head, “Something about doing it in Ryan’s parent’s bed, I haven’t really been listening.”

Pete and Patrick share a glance, and Patrick rolls his shoulders a little as he gets out of his seat. “Since we’re adhering to your schedule and everything, y’know,” he says, before he walks over to Pete. And Pete looks like he wasn’t expecting this, because he kinda crowds back a little, crowds back until Patrick pulls him closer by the shirt collar. Then, Pete half-stands, half leans against his chair, he’s holding onto the desk for support but he’s barely getting it, it’s just Patrick holding him up by the collar, and they _kiss_.

It’s the kind of kiss that looks like it’s reserved for the two of them and the two of them only, it makes sense because they only have ever kissed in the context of sex, but they’re in front of all of their friends, Hayley’s screaming “YEAH, PETE!” and Brendon looks like he’s two seconds away from taking some notes, Pete’s pulling Patrick down, gasping and grinding his whole mouth against Patrick’s like he’s the only substance he needs, and their kiss only breaks when Pete loses his balance and almost falls- he narrowly escapes bruising his ass only thanks to Patrick's grip around his waist keeping him upright.

“My knight in cotton cardigans,” Pete gasps out as he wraps his arms around Patrick's neck, and Tyler almost gags at the cheesiness. It’s kind of ridiculous, the way it all played out. But he can’t help but feel happy for them, especially when Patrick presses his forehead against Pete’s and laughs with him at the super lame joke.

“So… you’re dating? Yes?” Travie asks, and Pete waves him off, going in for another kiss, “yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever, we’ll explain later,” he says before he presses another kiss to Patrick’s lips.

And then it just gets a little redundant- there’s only so much of Pete and Patrick making out they all want to see before it becomes as annoying as the two of them whinnying about the other. Brendon and the gang file out of the parlor, and Hayley jabs her finger in Josh’s chest, she says “You better be ready to tattoo me when I’m 18”, he throws his hands up to surrender, and she fits the hand she just used to assault Josh with into Maddy’s. Josh gives Tyler an eyebrow raise, and points to their intertwined hands, and Tyler shrugs. “I didn’t question it," Tyler says, and Josh smirks in response- "Twenty bucks says your sister and Hayley are going to be a thing. I'm willing to _bet_ on this, that's how sure I am."

Tragically (for Pete and Patrick, not so much Tyler and Josh), Patrick’s customer comes in, so Pete slumps back into his seat. “So… thanks, I guess. For locking us in that room.”

Tyler claps his hand on Pete’s shoulder. “Yeah, no problem, you guys needed it,” he says, and Josh looks up from slurping cold noodles and adds “we needed it too. Not that I totally didn’t love hearing the two of you cry about each other. By the way- you’re disinfecting that room, there’s no way I’m going back in there until you air it out. And wash the couch cushions.”

Pete reaches his hand into Josh’s container of  sesame chicken, and says as he chews, “who said we did it on the couch?”

It doesn’t matter that Pete and Patrick are dating, though- Tyler and Josh still sit through a good 30 minutes of Pete talking about Patrick. Except the words aren’t so much laced with hurt as they are with happiness- the smile on Pete’s face, the way he talks with his hands, wild and crude gestures, the yelling and the laughter that rakes through his whole body… it makes sparing 30 minutes worth every second. To Pete, his world world seems gray when he's upset, but to everyone else, it's the same. An unhappy Pete feels like there's something duller about the universe, like something is just off-key. An ugly, discordant note, a suspension that only resolves to its correct note when Pete gives someone his signature Cheshire grin.

* * *

Tyler’s been hanging out in Josh’s room since the very beginning- the time that he showed up with chicken nuggets and fries, back before the Pete and Patrick drama started, back when he lived at home ( _God_ , he thinks, _that seems like so long ago_ ), that date happened a day after they had met. He’s lounged in the seat that Josh first tattooed him on far too many times to count, but it feels so different now.

Of course, this is because he’s actually getting work done, as opposed to dicking around, but _still_. The flowers on the wall that Travie painted, they look so foreign. The room is cold, and goosebumps rise on his skin.

The door opens, and Tyler turns his head, practically gives himself whiplash, to look at Josh. “Hi, I’m about two seconds away from running out of here, so talk me out of it.”

The door closes, Tyler turns back around, practically sliding all the way down, but then Josh is in his line of view, the pink hair he’s known to love has faded and turned to this salmon shade, and somehow Tyler loves that one more. The pink hair, he liked that before he even knew Josh, even knew his name, but this watered down orange? This is the person that he loves. Soft brown eyes and the nose ring that shines when it catches the light.

“Do you want me to put the space heater on?” Josh asks, as he sits down, sits the opposite way so that his arms hang off the brace on the back, and he reaches for Tyler’s hand, he rubs over the tattoo with his thumb, something reminiscent of the way that he rubs his thumb over-- yeah, nevermind. “It’s gonna be okay,” Josh says, _coos,_ practically, “it’s gonna look so good. _You_ designed it, it’s all yours.”

“I know,” Tyler says, through a sigh, “I feel like such a baby. And yeah… space heater, please.”

“You’re not a _baby_ , just a little freaked out. Which is understandable, it’s gonna be a lot bigger than the other one.”

“Not helping,” Tyler says, bringing a hand up to bury his head in. “Not helping at all.”

Tyler’s not really sure what would help, though. Maybe if he were comatose? He’s not sure if it would be appropriate to ask Josh to knock him out.

What are his fears? That Josh will come at him with the razor again? He already knows that Josh wouldn’t cut him up the way he used to cut up himself. But there’s still a sick feeling bubbling in his stomach, it feels like acid burning through his chest, with every beat of his heart, the heat and fear spreads. That the needles that he’s already felt before will magically fill with knives instead of ink?

“This is going to sound stupid,” Josh says, squeezing Tyler’s hand once more before he lets go, and gets up out of the seat. The heater gets turned on, the humming from the machine counters the buzzing in his mind, and the running of the faucet sends chills up Tyler’s spine. He’s 22, he shouldn’t be scared by silly needles and the sound of water going straight down the drain. “But we could always name colors.”

It _does_ sound kinda stupid- luckily, Tyler doesn't really care. But stupid is a mean word- let’s go with _familiar_.

This is familiar. Josh’s smile back at him when Tyler says, “Okay, but you’re gonna lose,” this is familiar too. It’s like the walk from where Tyler parks his car all the way up to the apartment he shares with Pete. Like the way that he always wakes up early, even though he doesn’t live at home. Like the way that the guitar sounds in “What I Know”, like the blue in Jenna and Maddy’s eyes, and the way that Patrick glares at people before he melts, the way that Brendon’s always relating something to sex, _always_ , Hayley’s loud voice and her huge heart, like the way that Pete laughs.

“Red,” Tyler says, when Josh runs the razor over where he’s gonna tattoo. The smell of alcohol wipes burn his eyes, and his whole forearm is red from all of the scrubbing from the soap, from the shaving. It feels a little what fire probably feels like, like holding your hand over a candle.

“Beige,” Josh says, as he tapes Tyler’s design and transfers it over to stencil paper.

“Mint green,” Tyler says, as Josh dips something in the green soap again, and it goes over his red forearm. _Seize the night_ , he tells himself, _don’t freak out and leave now. You’re gonna look like an idiot with a random patch of no hair on your arm._

“Are you okay? We can stop, it’s cool. Purple,” Josh says as he spreads Stencil solvent on Tyler’s arm, as he pulls his gloves off just to put another pair on.

“No, don’t, I’m okay, I—dark blue,” Tyler says, as Josh peels the stencil off. There’s ‘ _Carpe Noctem’_ , right there, hidden in the spaces of nothing but darkness. They wait for everything to dry, there are containers of ink by Josh’s arm, the machine is one hand, and Josh’s other hand is on Tyler’s waist, grounding him. He knows that he will have to move it once he starts, but this moment- he wants to keep it forever.

“Wait a sec, just-“ Tyler says, he rolls his shoulders back the best he can, props his feet up so that they’re against the seat, he closes his eyes and opens them back to look over to Josh. Pink hair, brown eyes, the nose ring that shines when the light catches it. The color game doesn’t even matter anymore, Tyler is instantly comforted. Instead of fear in his veins, his cells become hearts. He looks at Josh, and thinks about him moving the mattress for him, the flowers after their date, the blue slushies and the moist chicken nuggets from Wendy’s. The pangs from Josh drumming in his room become his heart beat.

And Tyler thinks that _Pete_ is the overly cheesey and romantic one.

“Okay, okay, I’m ready,” Tyler says, before he grins. “Pink.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaaand that's a (shitty) wrap!!! i'm the worst at writing endings but i hope that it was alright! anyways- even though this took me WAY too long to finish, im glad that i stuck with it and finished it!!!! :') thanks 2 my bff ScytheMeister7 for always yelling at me to fuckin write- sorry i only listened like 1/10 of the time but... i got it done!!! ur always validating me and i love uuuuuuu. ily more than i love pete's poetry (...)
> 
> and THANKS SM to everyone who commented and kudos'd and the whole shebang! it means so much :') this was... truly a Time and i'll always remember this as the fic that i had the hardest time writing but the one that i think i had the most fun planning (well besides the eccentric wedding which....... probably wont be out until mid june......) like... PETE'S AN EGG CHEF! TYLER'S KIND OF A SLUT? but... y'know a proud one. THEY'RE SINGING TO LADY GAGA! and ryan and brendon and hayley from wanted:piano lessons in this universe too like it was just FUN in my head. it came out.. not so great and kinda messy but idk. im at least glad that i got to share my progress as a writer with you guys & and i hope my future self doesnt look back on this and cringe too hard


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